HYDERABAD: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Thursday directed the government to furnish all details of the properties owned by Director General of Police (DGP) V Dinesh Reddy and his wife V Kamala Reddy by November 14.The court was hearing the arguments following a petition filed by senior IPS officer Umesh Kumar, days after the arrest of former journalist T Sunil Reddy, who is alleged to have confessed that he collected the details of the properties owned by Dinesh Reddy’s wife at the behest of Umesh Kumar.It was alleged that Sunil Reddy has forged the signature of MP MA Khan’s and sent a false petition to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) alleging that Dinesh Reddy’s wife had purchased huge tracts of lands either in her own name or through benamis and asking the matter to be probed. But when the MP denied sending such a petition, CID had arrested Sunil Reddy.Arguing for Umesh Kumar on Thursday, his counsel Sripada Prabhakar contended that the state government had issued a memo directing the additional DGP, CID, to conduct an enquiry into a petition received by the MHA secretary on April 22 this year and submit a report.Prabhakar argued that much before the enquiry was entrusted to CID, Dinesh Reddy, then working as director general, vigilance and enforcement (V & E) had conducted an enquiry on his own. He said that this was stated in one of the communications to the state government.“How can anyone facing allegations himself conduct an enquiry?” Prabhakar asked.He said that the FIR against Sunil Reddy had stated that the documents sent by him to Delhi had maligned the image of Dinesh Reddy. “If the certified copies of properties of an honest officer had been sent, it would have amounted to maligning his image, but in this case the image of the officer is not maligned,” he argued.He further argued that in his annual immovable property returns submitted to the MHA, Dinesh Reddy had stated that he does not own any property. “But there are 700 pages of certified copies to show that his wife owns properties,” he argued.After hearing the arguments for over 45 minutes, Justice Ramesh Ranganathan directed the government to furnish the details of the properties owned by Dinesh Reddy and his wife Kamala Reddy by November 14 while asking Reddy to file a counter. The matter has been posted for hearing on November 15. In his petition, Umesh Kumar had requested the court to hand over the investigation pertaining to Sunil Reddy either to CBI or any superior officer other than Dinesh Reddy.
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