Amaravati, January 09, 2026: The Supreme Court has set aside an Andhra Pradesh High Court order that nullified 13 First Information Reports filed by the state's Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB).
These FIRs targeted public servants accused of amassing wealth disproportionate to their known sources of income under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The cases date back to registrations between 2016 and 2020 at the ACB's Central Investigation Unit in Vijayawada, following the 2014 state bifurcation when the unit shifted from Hyderabad.
The High Court quashed them on jurisdictional grounds, ruling the Vijayawada office lacked proper notification as a police station under CrPC Section 2(s) before a 2022 government order clarified its status.
A bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and Satish Chandra Sharma called the High Court's approach hyper-technical and a travesty of justice. It upheld the continuity of pre-bifurcation orders and restored the FIRs.
The court directed accused officials to cooperate fully, barred coercive actions like arrests for now, and ordered the ACB to complete investigations and file final reports within six months. It also barred the High Court from entertaining further challenges on these jurisdictional grounds.
