TS govt moves SC on poachgate, seeks HC stay

Hyderabad: The state government on Tuesday filed an interim application before the single judge bench of Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy of the Telangana High Court, seeking suspension of his order handing over the poachgate probe to the CBI. The government said it had moved a special leave petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court.

In its application, government requested the stay for three weeks to move the apex Supreme Court, as also in the wake of the CBI insisting upon the Chief Secretary to hand over the case files.

In his arguments, however, Advocate-General B.S. Prasad said the government had moved a SLP before the Supreme Court and sought stay for a week.

A report from New Delhi said the Telangana government had sought an urgent hearing in the Supreme Court on its appeal challenging the High Court order. Mentioning the state's plea before a bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, senior advocate Dushyant Dave said there was an FIR related to “destabilising the state government.”

He said the single-judge bench had ordered a CBI probe and the larger bench upheld it, saying the state government's appeal was not maintainable. “There is a grave urgency. If the CBI enters the investigation, everything will fail,” Dave said.

The bench, also comprising Justices PS Narasimha and J.B. Pardiwala, asked Dave to mention the plea on Wednesday. “We will list the matter. Mention it tomorrow morning. Even without mentioning, it will come up next week,” the CJI said.

In the High Court, Advocate General Prasad appraised the single judge bench about Monday’s judgment of the division bench headed by Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, which had held that the single judge’s orders transferring the probe to the CBI were on the criminal jurisdiction side, and an appeal against such an order lay before the Supreme Court. He said only the single judge could suspend the orders.

L. Ravichander, senior counsel appearing for the three accused, Ramachandra Bharathi, K. Nanda Kumar and D.P.S.K.V.N Simhayagi, on whose petition the single judge had transferred the probe to the CBI, vehemently opposed the plea on the ground that the “doctrine of merger” applied in this case.

He argued that the “doctrine of merger” was a common law doctrine which was based on the simple reasoning that there cannot be, at the same time, more than one operative order governing the same subject matter. He submitted that when the state government had filed an appeal against the orders of  the single judge before the division bench which had then passed its own orders, the orders would be merged. Hence, the government cannot again approach the single judge for relief.

Ravichander said that on December 26, the government had requested the single judge to keep the orders in abeyance until the certified copy of the judgement was issued. He submitted that the division bench also was not inclined to stay the judgment issued by it on February 6, because it felt that there was a prima facie case.

Ravichander asked why the state government was so anxious in continuing the investigation with the SIT. “Why not the CBI? After all, it is another investigating agency,” he said.  

Gadi Praveen Kumar, Deputy Solicitor General of India, representing the CBI, submitted that the state government was trying to run away from the CBI investigation even after the court order. He said that despite the CBI having asked the Chief Secretary to hand over the case files, the government had not complied.

Senior counsels Prabhakar and Mayur Reddy, appearing for BJP and others, averred that the single judge could not again hear any plea pertaining to the poachgate case as it would go against the doctrine of merger.  

Advocate General Prasad argued that the doctrine of merger applied only when the appeals against the orders were exercised by the forum which should have been the appellate or revisional jurisdiction. In this case, the division bench had said that the appeals were not maintainable based on the issue of jurisdiction. He told the court that the CBI was repeatedly for the case details, despite the government having the option of filing an SLP. “This special interest of the CBI speaks volumes in this issue,” he said.

After hearing the contentions, Justice Vijaysen Reddy, asked Advocate-General Prasad to get clarification and permission from the Chief Justice bench, at least the oral orders, on the issue.

Prasad said he would make a mention before the Chief Justice bench on Wednesday at 10.30 am and get back to the single judge at 2.30 pm. To a query by Justice Vijaysen Reddy, CBI counsel said the agency had not registered the FIR as it had not received the case files.