Poachgate case probe will be monitored by HC Single Judge

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday said that the investigation into the alleged attempt to poach TRS MLAs would be monitored by Justice Bollam Vijaysen Reddy of the Telangana High Court.

A division bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice C.V. Bhaskar Reddy on Tuesday said that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by Hyderabad police commissioner C.V. Anand, which is probing the case, must furnish reports from time to time only to the single judge, and not to any executive or political authority, and issued a set of instructions.

The bench was hearing an appeal filed by the BJP unit, which had challenged the single judge’s modified orders of November 8, allowing the police to continue its investigation into ‘poachgate.’

The bench said that it may not be proper for the writ appellate court to stall an investigation into a crime of this nature for a long period.

Vaidyanathan Chidambaram, senior counsel representing BJP-Telangana, said a gross discrepancy in the remand diary and the panchanama was noticed. The single judge ought to have continued the interim orders of deferring the investigation, until the petition for the CBI inquiry was disposed of, he said.

The Chief Justice asked senior counsel whether he had any previous judgments that said the investigation must be stayed till a decision was delivered on a petition seeking a CBI probe. “Unless we have precedents, we cannot pass orders in such matters,” Chief Justice Bhuyan said.

Senior counsel Dushyant Dave, appearing for the Telangana government, pointed out that the BJP wanted to stop the investigation in the initial stages. When the BJP had maintained that the accused were not related to it, why was it asking for the investigation to be stopped, Dave said.

“If it feels that there is defamation of the party, it can avail remedies,” Dave said.

He informed the court of the Supreme Court citations which said that criminal proceedings could not be scuttled at the initial stages and the courts could not stop the investigation in cognisable offences.

Order Order!

The Telangana High Court has issued a set of directions to the SIT probing the ‘poachgate’ scam:

SIT shall submit first report in sealed cover before single judge on November 29.

SIT shall not disclose details of investigation before any authority or to the media.
There shall be no selective leakage of investigation details.

It is the responsibility of SIT chairman C.V. Anand, to ensure these directions are scrupulously followed.

SIT shall not report before any authority, be it political or executive

There shall no interference by any authority into the SIT investigation

If permissions were required to proceed further with the investigation, SIT could make suitable application before the single judge.

Single judge shall monitor progress of investigation from the details submitted before him in a sealed cover by the SIT from time to time.