Telangana High Court quashes TS plea over transfer of case to CBI

Hyderabad: In a setback to the Telangana government, the High Court on Monday dismissed its plea challenging the decision of a single judge to transfer to CBI, the investigation into the case of alleged attempt to poach BRS MLAs, from the Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed by it.

A division bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice N Tukaramji confirmed the orders passed by the single judge and dismissed the batch of writ appeals filed by the government and others, on the ground of maintainability.

A single judge of the High Court on December 26, 2022 ordered transfer of the investigation into the case of alleged conspiracy to poach four BRS MLAs to the CBI, from the SIT of the state police.

The High Court had then also quashed the government order to constitute the SIT and the investigation so far carried out by it and the probe done by an Assistant Commissioner of Police in the initial stage.

After this, the state government and others filed writ appeals against the single judge order. However, the High Court division bench on Monday upheld the orders passed by the single judge and dismissed the appeals. It also refused to stay its order when state government counsel requested for suspension of the order to enable it to approach the Supreme Court. The order now paves way for the CBI to proceed with the investigation.

The central agency has already issued letters to the Telangana Chief Secretary requesting to furnish all relevant material in the case. Three people -- Ramachandra Bharati alias Satish Sharma, Nandu Kumar and Simhayaji Swamy -- were already named as accused (A1 to A3) in the case after a complaint was lodged by BRS MLA Pilot Rohith Reddy, among four legislators, against them on October 26 last year.

Meanwhile, SIT has decided to challenge the High Court order in Supreme Court.