In a huge embarrassment to the state police, the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Wednesday pulled up DGP Gautam Sawang on the seizure of vehicles used for transportation of liquor.

Hearing a batch of petitions, the High Court ordered the police to immediately release the seized vehicles. Asking the DGP to explain why due procedures were not followed in seizure of the vehicles, the court gave three days time to release the vehicles and hand them over to the respective owners.

The petitioners contended that the police were not following the rules stipulated under CrPC and the AP Excise Act in seizing the vehicles and that their vehicles were getting damaged as they were kept outside the police stations.

Earlier, the HC had pulled up Gautam Sawang why action should not be taken against the police for arresting TDP president and former chief minister

N Chandrababu Naidu at the Vizag airport on February 27 when he arrived to participate in various party programmes. The TDP boss was arrested despite securing necessary permissions from the police to hold the party’s programmes. However, the YSRCP workers arrived at the airport and disallowed Naidu from entering into the city and thereby forcibly stopped him from taking part in the party’s programmes. Deposing before the court,

Sawang had admitted that Naidu’s arrest was not in the spirit of Sec.151(1). The HC asked him to take action against the assistant commissioner and the commissioner of police of Vizag who served the arrest notice.

In another case, Gautam Sawang had to appear before the court on February 14 in connection with a habeas corpus petition filed by a person from Visakhapatnam accusing the police of illegally confining his son and daughter-in-law in a house in Vijayawada.