Telangana HC to hear Bandi Sanjay's son protection plea on May 15

Hyderabad: Telangana High Court may decide on Friday whether to grant interim protection or not to MoS Bandi Sanjay's son Bandi Sai Bageerath in connection with the POCSO case registered against him at Petbasheerabad police station. His petition came up for hearing on Thursday.

The High Court on Thursday said it would hear the victim on Friday before passing orders in the interim anticipatory bail application filed by Bageerath.

As the counsel appearing for the victim submitted that he wanted to argue against grant of interim relief to Bageerath, Justice T Madhavi Devi said that she will hear the counsel on Friday and then pass orders on Bageerath's application for interim relief. The anticipatory bail petition is yet to be considered and likely to be taken up next week. .

Senior Advocate S Niranjan Reddy who appeared for Bageerath pressed for interim protection. The victim's counsel opposed the plea and requested to be heard before any orders are passed.

During the hearing Niranjan Reddy claimed that the complaint against Bageerath is "completely false" and urged that an interim relief of protection from arrest be granted till the anticipatory bail plea is heard.

He pointed out that there is scope for doubting that the victim is, in fact, a minor and also that there has been considerable delay in preferring the complaint since the last incident allegedly happened in December 2025.

"In a POCSO case the case is predicated on age of victim. In a chargesheet filed by police in relation to an earlier incident, police had identified age of victim about 5 years back as 15 years old. If police chargesheet is correct in underage driving case showing victim's age as 15 years at relevant time driving a car then there is reason for court to have some suspicion if victim is a minor at the time when the alleged incident is referred," Niranjan Reddy said.

He also said that the birth certificates that are placed showed different birth certificates of the victim taken from different entities and thus there was confusion regarding age of the victim.

He said that after the FIR was filed, and then the case was improved upon as the case would not come under offences having punishment of above seven years of punishment, leading to alteration of memo bring in Section 5 and 6 POCSO which are cases where punishment is above 7 years.

He said that there were Supreme Court judgments which said that if there is improvement, embellishment especially with a delay then the court would have a reason to take it with great deal of suspicion.

"Allegation is alleged relationship happened in June. Two incidents happened. Last incident happened in December 2025. No complaint, FIR filed till May 8. They filed FIR on May 8, complaint said that they were weighing legal options on March 8. Complaint has full understanding of law. Even if it is taken as true, that complaint and offences alleged are all below seven years (punishment) which will not require my arrest. If there is altering of complaint thereafter, then there is clear pattern for purpose of trying to take me into custody for wrongful purpose," he said.