Film producer’s land-grabbing case takes curious turns-OxBig News Network

The re-arrest of film producer B. Sivaramakrishna by Osmania University police of Hyderabad on Thursday, in a criminal case connected to alleged attempt to grab thousands of crore rupees worth government land, raised eye-brows for more than one reason.

Firstly, not in many cases an accused is re-arrested. In this case, Sivaramakrishna and two others were arrested on October 17. The film producer secured conditional bail two days later. Interestingly, the police filed a petition in the local court on Monday stating that the accused had violated bail conditions and hence the bail should be cancelled.

With the local court cancelling the producer’s bail yesterday, they re-arrested the film producer who was remanded in judicial custody. The main charge against the film producer was that he attempted to grab government land of 80 acres at Rayadurg and 10 acres at Yacharam of Ibrahimpatnam on Hyderabad outskirts.

The police invoked Sections 420, 409, 468 and 471 read with 120-B of Indian Penal Code (as the crime was committed before July 1, 2024 when IPC was in force) in the case. For some inexplicable reasons, the police did not invoke Section 467 (forgery). East Zone Deputy Commissioner of Police B. Balaswamy said that Section 468 was invoked since it contained punishment for forgery.

“It is strange that police did not invoke Section 467 (forgery) in a crime in which main ingredient is forgery but used Section 468 which is related to forgery for the purpose of cheating,” High Court lawyer Sridhar said. Osmania University Assistant Commissioner of Police G. Jagan said that they applied the same IPC sections which the Central Crime Station invoked when the latter issued zero First Information Report initially.

“In fact, we added Sections 214 and 215 of BNS in the remand report,” he said. It is learnt that the legal experts suggested to the police to ensure the accused was inside the prison till completion of trial in the case since the accused attempted to grab thousands of crore rupees worth land.

In a co-incidence, the Fourth Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate who granted bail to the film producer got transferred on Thursday and a new judicial officer was posted in that court.