The Telangana government on Tuesday, 7 February, filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the state high court’s orders, transferring the “Cash for MLAs’ case” to the CBI.
The government requested the Supreme Court to hear the petition on Wednesday.
Dushyant Dave, a senior counsel of the Supreme Court, appearing for the state government, argued that if the case is transferred to the CBI, the incriminating evidence collected by the SIT might be destroyed.
The Supreme Court said it would hear the petition next week.
Meanwhile, the state government has decided to request the Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court to give his consent to single judge B Vijayasen Reddy to hear its petition for keeping in abeyance for three weeks his order transferring the “Cash for MLAs case” to the CBI to enable it to move the Supreme Court.
Justice Vijaysen Reddy, on Tuesday, asked the government to get the permission of the chief justice for him to hear its petition since the division bench, while upholding his judgment, had declined to keep the order in suspension.
Single judge transferred case to CBI
The single judge gave the order transferring the case to the CBI on a petition filed by the three accused in the Cash for MLAs case — Faridabad-based Kerala priest Ramachandra Bharathi, Tirupati pontiff Simha Yajulu and Hyderabad hotelier Nanda Kumar — praying the court to transfer the case to CBI
They argued that they had no faith in the SIT, which was investigating the case. After hearing the arguments in the case, the judge transferred the case to the CBI, while scrapping the SIT and its investigation.
The Cash for MLAs case, ever since was registered by Moinabad police on 26 October last year, has been stuck in the Telangana High Court.
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The ‘Cash for MLAs’ case
Immediately after the Cyberabad police arrested the three alleged BJP emissaries and registered a case against them under the Prevention of Corruption Act, the ACB court refused to remand them, since the police could not produce cash which they said the accused had offered to the four BRS MLAs for joining the BJP.
Later, the police had to move the high court to get an order to the ACB court to remand the three accused.
Meanwhile, the state government constituted an SIT to probe the case. As it began its investigation, the suspects one after the other — some of them were high profile personalities like BJP leader BL Santhosh and Kerala head of the NDA Tushar Vellapally— obtained orders from the high court against arresting them.
At the same time, the three accused in the case filed a petition in the high court seeking the transfer of the case to the CBI and scrap the SIT. The single-judge bench while transferring the case to CBI, asked the government to transfer the files and the investigation done by the SIT thus far to the CBI.
The state government then moved the division bench of the high court against the single judge’s order on which the bench delivered its verdict on Monday, upholding single-judge order.
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‘Transferring to CBI of no purpose’
Advocate General BS Prasad — who appeared from the SIT — argued before the division bench against transferring the case to the CBI, insisting that it would serve no purpose.
He had said that SIT was already investigating the case and it would not be in the fitness of things to scrap the investigation and the SIT and transfer the case to the CBI.
In the past, Dushyant Dave had argued on behalf of the state government that it was not fair to transfer the case to CBI on the ground that the chief minister had revealed evidence at a media conference. The division bench then reserved its judgment.
The court also heard arguments on Pilot Rohit Reddy’s petition against the Enforcement Directorate (ED) that it had registered a case against him though no money laundering took place in the entire process of “the attempt of the BJP emissaries” in trying to poach the MLAs.
Rohit Reddy’s counsel sought time to reply to the counter filed by the ED. The court then adjourned the case to 20 February.
