Hyderabad
The Telangana excessive court docket on Monday struck down a assessment petition filed by the Particular Investigation Crew (SIT) of the state police looking for to declare Bharatiya Janata Social gathering nationwide normal secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh and three others as accused within the alleged try to poach 4 Telangana Rashtra Samithi MLAs into the BJP.
A excessive court docket bench headed by Justice D Nagarjun, which reserved its judgement on December 8 after listening to the arguments on the petition, delivered its ruling on Monday, individuals accustomed to the matter stated.
The SIT moved the excessive court docket difficult the judgement of a particular court docket for Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) instances on December 6, which dismissed a memo filed by the Cyberabad police naming B L Santhosh, in addition to Tushar Vellapally and Jaggu Swamy from Kerala and advocate B Srinivas from Karimnagar, as accused.
The SIT sought to incorporate the names of those 4 suspects within the First Info Report registered by the Moinabad police within the poaching case on the idea of proof discovered in opposition to them in the course of the course of investigation.
However the ACB particular court docket had rejected the memo saying neither legislation and order police nor the SIT was competent to research the offences regarding the Prevention of Corruption Act, and solely the Particular Police Institution Anti-Corruption Bureau was the competent authority to take action.
State advocate normal B S Prasad, arguing for the SIT, challenged the ACB court docket order ,saying it had crossed its limits by rejecting the memo. “The instances pertaining to the questioning of Santhosh and three others within the alleged poaching case are earlier than the excessive court docket. Beneath these circumstances, the ACB court docket has no locus standi in rejecting the memo to query them as accused within the case primarily based on the gathered proof,” the advocate normal argued.
Justice Nagarjun puzzled how the assessment petition by the SIT can be legitimate since one other bench of the excessive court docket transferred the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation and dissolved the SIT. The advocate normal, nevertheless, stated the state authorities nonetheless had the choice of difficult the switch of the case to the CBI and therefore, the assessment petition could possibly be thought-about. Nonetheless, the excessive court docket choose struck down the petition filed by the SIT.
The Moinabad police below Cyberabad registered an FIR within the case on October 26 accusing three individuals – Ramachandra Bharati from Faridabad, Nanda Kumar from Hyderabad and Simhayaji Swamy from Tirupati — who had been detained from a farmhouse whereas allegedly making an attempt to poach 4 TRS MLAs into the BJP by providing them big money, posts and contracts.
The accused had been booked below Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 120B (legal conspiracy), 171B r/w 171E (bribery), 506 r/w 34 (legal intimidation) part 8 of Prevention of Corruption Act.
The SIT, constituted on November 9 to probe the alleged MLAs’ poaching case, discovered, throughout its investigation, that Santhosh and three others had been involved with the three accused named within the FIR for luring the 4 TRS MLAs – Pilot Rohit Reddy, Guvvala Balaraju, B Harshavardhan Reddy and Rega Kantha Rao — into the BJP.