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9.2. Assistant Commissioner of Police, Rajendranagar Division, Cyberabad Commissionerate sought for remand of respondent Nos.1, 2 and 3. First Additional Special Judge for SPE and ACB at Hyderabad (ACB Judge) held that since the alleged offences are under Sections 120-B and 171-B read with Section 171-E and Section 506 read with Section 34 IPC and Section 8 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (briefly, 'the PC Act' hereinafter), the maximum punishment prescribed would be seven years. Therefore, guidelines of the Supreme Court in Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar1 were required to be followed; it was mandatory to issue notice under Section 41-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC) to respondent Nos.1, 2 and 3. Hence, remand sought for respondent Nos.1, 2 and 3 was illegal as mandatory guidelines in Arnesh Kumar (supra) were not followed. Accordingly, ACB Judge declined the prayer of remand vide the order dated 27.10.2022. This came to be challenged by the State before this Court in criminal revision case No.699 of 2022. By order dated 29.10.2022, order dated 27.10.2022 of the ACB Judge was set aside by a learned Single Judge of this Court. Respondent Nos.1, 2 and 3 were directed to surrender before the police. Against this order, respondent Nos.1, 2 and 3 preferred special leave petition before the Supreme Court.

10.9. De facto complainant had shared the above information with three of his colleague MLAs, namely, (1) Guvvala Balraj, (2) B.Harshavardhan Reddy and (3) Rega Kanta Rao. All of them came forward to assist the de facto complainant. Respondent Nos.1 and 2 had contacted the de facto complainant and informed him that they would visit his farm house along with respondent No.3 on 26.10.2022. At about 15.10 hours, respondent Nos.1, 2 and 3 had reached the farm house of the de facto complainant at Azeez Nagar, Moinabad Mandal and started negotiations with the de facto complainant to finalise the deal. After some time, the other three MLAs arrived at the farm house and joined the meeting. In the course of the meeting, respondent Nos.1, 2 and 3 had lured TRS MLAs to shift to BJP. At about 18.30 hours, respondent Nos.1, 2 and 3 were nabbed, incriminating materials were seized and seizure panchanama was drawn. Deponent stated that activities of respondent Nos.1, 2 and 3 prima facie disclosed offences punishable under Sections 120-B and 171-B read with Section 171-E, 506 read with Section 34 IPC and Section 8 of the PC Act. After completing the formalities of arrest, respondent Nos.1, 2 and 3 were produced before the ACB Court. However, ACB Court refused to remand respondent Nos.1, 2 and 3 to judicial custody on the ground of violation of mandatory procedure under Section 41-A CrPC and ordered their release. 10.10. Aggrieved by the said order, State filed criminal revision case No.699 of 2022 before this Court and a learned Single Judge of this Court by order dated 28.10.2022 directed respondent Nos.1, 2 and 3 to surrender before the police and to produce them before the concerned magistrate.

22.6. Before concluding, he submits that appellants had filed a memo before the learned ACB Judge informing him that police intended to add a few more persons as accused. ACB Judge had passed a detailed order refusing to accept such memo of the appellants. In the said order, he had also questioned the very constitution of SIT. Assailing such order of the learned ACB Judge, State had filed a criminal revision case before the learned Single Judge of this Court which has been dismissed. Therefore, de hors the judgment of the learned Single Judge, in view of the decision of this Court confirming the view taken by the learned ACB Judge, there is no way that SIT can function as an investigating agency.