HC defers investigation in ‘poaching’ issue to Nov. 4

HYDERABAD: In an interim order, Justice Bollam Vijaysen Reddy of Telangana High Court on Saturday deferred further investigation into the alleged poaching of TRS MLAs by three persons who were named as BJP workers, till November 4, on a petition filed by the state BJP.

Justice Reddy said, “This court is not inclined to express any opinion on the matter, as the proceedings in Crime No. 455 of 2022 at Moinabad police station are not stayed but investigation is deferred, which would not cause prejudice to any of the parties.”

The judge directed the respondents — the Union government, the state government, Telangana police and complainant Pilot Rohit Reddy, TRS MLA — to file counters before November 4.

Additional advocate general J. Ramachandra Rao said that another bench of the High Court, led by Justice Chillakur Sumalatha, had directed the accused to surrender and gave the police the liberty to arrest them. He contended that there could be a conflict between the two orders.

Justice Reddy said that his order would not affect the order passed by the other bench and the police and others were given liberty to seek modification of the order after receiving a copy of the order passed by the other bench.

Earlier, senior counsel J. Prabhakar, appearing for the state BJP, said the investigation was being done with ulterior motives so as to tarnish the image of the petitioner.

Expressing doubts about how Cyberabad police commissioner reached the scene, even before the crime was registered and had given interviews to TV channels, the senior counsel said that the ruling party MLAs had gone to the office of the Chief Minister.

Prabhakar said MLAs were not public servants within the meaning of Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, 1988. Even before preliminary enquiry was conducted, the offence under Section 8 of PC Act was included, which showed that the episode was stage-managed, he argued.

He said that the remand case diary stated that observation panchanama was drafted on October 26 at 12.30 pm and concluded at 2.30 pm on the same day. The signatures of the mediators, who are crucial witnesses, were taken on October 27.

Ramachandra Rao said, “An accused or any other person does not have any say in the matter unless consent is given by the state government as required under Section 6 of the Act, for referring the matter to CBI.”

He said that an MLA was a public servant within the meaning of Section 2 (c) of the PC Act read with Section 27 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. He referred to judgements of the Supreme Court in ’Arnab Ranjan Goswami v Union of India’ and ’Romila Thapar v. Union of India’ to state that High Courts have limited powers to transfer the case to another agency. He also mentioned the case of P.V. Narasimha Rao v State (CBI/SPE) wherein it was held that MPs and MLAs were public servants liable to be prosecuted for offences under the PC Act.