Telangana HC Reserves Decision on KCR's Petition Against Inquiry Commission
Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Friday reserved its decision on whether or not to admit the writ petition filed by former chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao against the inquiry commission headed by Justice L. Narasimha Reddy (retired).
A division bench of the Telangana High Court comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Jukanti Anil Kumar will pronounce its decision at 10.30 am on July 1.
The state government had constituted the commission under GO 9 dated March 14 to inquire into the irregularities and financial Implications of the power purchase agreements with Chhattisgarh and construction of power plants during the BRS regime.
Rao approached the High Court seeking a stay on GO on the ground that the commission chairman appeared to be biased and had pre-judged the issue before hearing the contentions of all sides.
During the arguments, Advocate-General A. Sudharshan Reddy argued that Rao’s petition was not maintainable and misconceived and liable to be dismissed at the admission stage. He said that a public notice was issued, inviting objections to forming the commission but drew no response. This itself showed showed that the commission was not biased. Neither the press conference of Justice Narasimha Reddy of June 11, nor the public notice showed any bias, the Advocate General said.
Sudharshan Reddy argued that the commission did not comment against Rao, who was attributing unfounded bias to the commission. The A-G submitted that in the case law of former chief minister Kotla Vijayabhaskar Reddy v Government of AP, the then state government had constituted a commission of inquiry headed by a retired judge of the AP High court under GO 11 during which notices were issued to Vijayabhaskar Reddy and a press conference was held. The court in its judgment in that case had said that the commission of inquiry could not be set aside.
Senior counsel Aditya Sondhi, representing Rao, submitted that the notification for constitution of the commission had termed it as a judicial inquiry into irregularities and to fix financial implications. In ‘Dalmia v Mr Justice Tendolkar’, the Supreme Court had held that a commission appointed under the Act does not perform any judicial function.
In the words of the Supreme Court, Sondhi said, the commission was merely to investigate and record its findings and recommendations without having any power to enforce them. The inquiry or report cannot be looked upon as a judicial inquiry in the sense of it being an exercise of judicial function, senior counsel submitted.
