Poachgate: Telangana High Court reserves orders on writs seeking CBI probe

Hyderabad: The High Court single judge bench, headed by Justice Bollam Vijaysen Reddy, on Thursday "reserved orders" in the batch of writ petitions filed by G Premender Reddy, State BJP general secretary and other accused, seeking a probe into the TRS MLAs' poaching case by CBI or any other special investigation team, other than the SIT.

On Wednesday, J Prabhakar, senior counsel appearing for Premender Reddy, placed GO 68 before Justice Reddy, according to which only ACB is authorised and competent to investigate the cases registered under PC Act.

On Thursday at 1.10 pm Advocate-General BS Prasad, who appeared before Justice Reddy, while replying to contentions raised by Prabhakar, informed that when predominantly ACB cases are referred by the government or on any complaint by an individual, the law and order police conduct discreet enquiries and take up investigation after registering a FIR against public servants or whoever is accused. The judge asked AG as to whether it is mandatory for ACB only to investigate this case, to which AG replied no. He said the provisions of the PC Act and IPC apply to crime no.455/2022 registered by the Moinabad police. A case was registered by SHO but later an ACP rank officer investigated the case as it was transferred to SIT. As provided under the PC Act, SIT constituted by the Telangana government, is competent to investigate this case and there is no irregularity in the steps taken for registration of FIR. The GO 68 furnished by Prabhakar cannot override the substantive provisions of the statute.

The GO has no relevance in this case, he stated and read out various chapters of the PC Act, which clearly say that the law and order police do have the power to investigate such cases. "ACB is a specialised agency, just like CB CID and CCS, which also investigate cases. There are a number of cases which were investigated by CB CID and CCS, whose matters are pending before the court."

On October 26, 2022, news broke out on various channels showing four TRS MLAs lured by three BJP men--Ramachandra Bharati, Nanda Kumar and Simhyaji Swamy--at a farmhouse in Moinabad. Immediately, a FIR 455/2022 was registered at Moinabad and the three accused were taken into custody by the police.

On October 27 the first writ petition no. 39767/2022, seeking a CBI probe into the case by BJP partymen was filed in the HC by Premender Reddy seeking a probe by CBI or any a SIT alleging mala fides in the investigation by the State police, which came up for hearing before Justice Vijaysen Reddy.

Since October 27 Justice Reddy heard the petition along with others filed by B L Santosh, BJP national general secretary, Busarapu Srinivas, advocate from Karimnagar, Tushar Vellapally, Dr. Jaggu Swamy, all accused in the case, seeking a stay on SIT investigation.

On December 1 Justice Dr. C. Sumalatha granted conditional bail to accused Ramachandra Bharati, Nanda Kumar and Simhyaji Swamy, on the directions of the Supreme Court.

Justice K Surender heard the criminal petitions filed by Santosh, Srinivas, Tushar Vellapally, Jaggu Swamy seeking a stay on the notice issued to them under Section 41A CrPC.

Justice Surender stayed the notice issued to the accused under Section 41A CrPC till December 22 on the ground that the notice issued to them by SIT does not consist of mandatory ingredients for issuance of notice.

Justice K Nagarjun "reserved orders" in the criminal revision case filed by SIT challenging the First Additional Special Judge for Trial of SPE & ACB cases, Hyderabad.

The ACB court had rejected the memo filed by SIT arraying Santosh, Vellapalli, Jaggu Swamy and Srinivas as accused 4 to7 on the ground that SIT has no power to investigate the case, where cases are registered under PC Act and election related sections.

The judge may take a week for pronouncement of orders.