Telangana BJP President Bandi Sanjay's Plea Against Remand Order To Be Heard On 10 April; Police Say He Is Involved In 10th Standard Exam Paper Leak

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Telangana state president Bandi Sanjay's plea to quash the judicial remand order against him will be heard on 10 April by the Telangana High Court.

The Court issued notice to the state government and allowed Sanjay to approach a lower court for bail.

He was sent to 14-day judicial custody by a magistrate in Hanamkonda, after he was arrested by the police on Wednesday (5 April).

The police have named him as the first accused in the 10th standard exam paper leak.

Warangal police commissioner AV Ranganath said that Sanjay was was booked under Section 5 of the Telangana Public Examinations (Prevention of Malpractice and Unfair means) Act, 1997, besides Section 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) and Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code.

Explaining the alleged incident, Ranganath said that a photo of the question paper was taken by a 16-year old boy while the exam was going on and it was sent to a former journalist Prashant who later sent it to Sanjay and other media houses.

He added that Prashant was in touch with Sanjay and the police felt that Sanjay had planned the whole operation in order to defame the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) government.

BRS leaders have said that they also suspect Sanjay to be behind the leak of the Telugu paper held a day before and demanded that he be disqualified from the Lok Sabha.

BJP leaders held protests all over the state and said that the BRS government had resorted to violating the Supreme Court guidelines while arresting Sanjay.

The police arrested BJP MLAs Eatala Rajender and M Raghunandan Rao who were leading protests demanding the release of Sanjay.

Tarun Chugh, the BJP's Telangana in-charge said Sanjay’s arrest would prove to be “the last nail in the coffin of chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s repressive regime”.