YSRCP leader Srihari gets bail

A court in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district on Thursday granted bail to YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) General Secretary (Media), Pudi Srihari, who was arrested on Wednesday for an allegedly abusive social media post targeting Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.

Police arrested him in Bengaluru early on Wednesday morning. He was brought to Kuppam, where he was produced before the Additional Junior Civil Judge Court on Thursday.

After hearing arguments from both sides, the court granted bail to Srihari.

YSRCP General Secretary (legal cell) and former Advocate General, P. Sudhakar Reddy, said the police arrested Srihari at 5.45 A.M. but told the court that he was arrested at 11.45 P.M.

Sudhakar Reddy said that the YSRCP has full faith in the judiciary and will continue its fight against false cases.

Srihari was arrested a day after the Supreme Court declined to intervene in Andhra Pradesh High Court’s order, suspending the remand rejection order of the trial court.

Srihari, who served as Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) to then Chief Minister, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, had approached the Supreme Court, apprehending arrest after the High Court suspended the remand rejection order given by the trial court in Kuppam.

Srihari was arrested on April 15 in Vijayawada in the case registered against him over making objectionable social media posts with morphed images of Chief Minister Naidu.

He was subsequently shifted to Kuppam, where the case was registered against him and another YSRCP functionary Girish Kumar Reddy.

Srihari was produced before the trial court on April 16. He was released after the court rejected the petition by the police to send him to judicial remand.

Later, the High Court suspended the order of the trial court.

Srihari has already denied creating, posting or forwarding the content in question. He said he had worked as a senior journalist for over 25 years and had always functioned within the limits of the law.

He maintained that even as a political leader, he continued to follow the ethics of journalism and respected the law.