AP High Court bows to Election Commission, shifts cop to headquarters

Vijayawada: The state government on Friday transferred Intelligence DG A.B. Venkateswara Rao after the AP High Court ruled against intervening in Election Commission orders.

The government had appealed against the transfer of Mr Rao and two other IPS officers, Mr Rahul Dev Sharma and Mr A. Venkat Ratnam, following a petition of the YSRC. A bench comprising Chief Justice C. Praveen Kumar delivered the order on Friday, refusing to intervene in the EC decision.

The court stated that there was no case for interim relief. The state government plans to file a petition in the Supreme Court.

A GO in this regard was issued by state government, attaching Mr Rao to the state police headquarters on Friday afternoon.  The government sent a panel of three names to the Election Commission to replace Mr Rao — Mr Nalin Prabhat of the 1992 batch, Mr Kumar Vishwajeet (1994) and Mr Mahesh Chandra Ladda (1998). This is the fourth GO in less than two days on the transfer order issued by the EC.

This comes after the High Court refused to issue interim relief on the petition filed by state government challenging the EC order.

After a lot of posturing that the IB chief does not come under the Election Commission purview, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had written to the EC objecting to the transfers and asserted that the IB chief does not come under the EC’s purview.

Mr Naidu argued that his security will be jeopardised if the Intelligence Bureau chief is transferred at the time of elections.

 Earlier, based on the orders issued by the EC, the state government issued GO No. 716 transferring Mr Venkateswara Rao, Mr Sharma and Mr Ratnam.

On Wednesday, it issued GO No. 721 bringing all police personnel right from the DGP and IGs to constables, except for the Intelligence DG under the purview of the EC. It also issued GO No. 720 cancelling GO No. 716, while issuing transfer orders to Mr Sharma and Mr Ratnam and not Mr Venkateswara Rao.