The Telangana High Court’s Justice B Vijaysen Reddy heard the batch of cases pertaining to the MLA poach gate investigation inconclusively on Tuesday. The Court has yet to rule on whether the notice can be issued to Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao, who is been made a party to the case filed by Tushar Vellampally.
J Ramachandra Rao, Additional Advocate General, requested that the Court rule on the matter after hearing their preliminary objections. Today, advancing argument on behalf of the state senior counsel, Dushant Dave summarised arguments, stating that the BJP’s aim was to drag the case out and obstruct the investigation.
He stated that the petitioners were filing multiple applications in different names before the High Court in order to avoid the investigation process. He made the case that the accused had no choice in choosing the investigation agency by referring to various judgments of the supreme court including Arnab Goswami.
He stated that there was no malicious intent in the investigation process and that the investigation could not be halted at this stage. Dave argued that the Court could only interfere with the investigation in the most extreme cases, and then only to the extent of requesting records.
ALSO READ: TS HC directs MLA poaching case accused to ‘surrender in 24 hrs’
TRS MLAs poaching case: SIT summons Kerala doctor for questioning
Telangana SIT grills accused in MLAs poaching case
Dave, pointing out India’s low conviction rate, stated that if investigations are questioned in this manner, there will be no proper adjudication of justice.
He stated that this case involved serious offenses such as encouraging MLA defection in an attempt to dethrone the state government, and that the ramifications on democratic functioning were significant because purchasing MLAs would affect lakhs of people who had elected them.
Senior counsel Uday Holla argued on behalf of one of the accused, Srinivas, that the investigation was unfair because the witnesses, the investigation agency, and the prosecutors were one and the same, i.e., police officers who were acting in favor of the state government.
He said, “We are not challenging the FIR, we are only saying the investigation should be transferred to CBI. The basis for implicating Srinivas was his photograph with the union minister and for offering legal help to one of the accused”, Holla argued.
The police posted a notice at Srinivas’ home and leaked it to the media, harming his reputation. He said that Srinivas was pressurized to name the BJP President in this case, therefore the investigation agency had flouted the law.
Meanwhile, when the Judge reminded the counsels of the Supreme Court’s order to conclude the hearing within a month, Dave stated that it was not necessary for the Court to hear all the cases at once because the Supreme Court order was specific to the case filed by the three main accused, Nand Kumar, Simhyaji, and Ramachandra Bharati.
The Judge granted senior counsel Mr. Mahesh Jethmalani, who was appearing on behalf of the three main accused, permission to argue virtually via video conference. On Wednesday, the Judge will resume hearing the case.
(This story has been sourced from a third-party syndicated feed, agencies. Raavi Media accepts no responsibility or liability for the text’s dependability, trustworthiness, reliability, and data. Raavi Media management/ythisnews.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content at its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever.)
