The Telangana government led by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Wednesday challenged the verdict of the single judge bench of the high court transferring the case of alleged attempt to poach Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLAs into the BJP to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The government filed a review petition before a division bench of the state high court to this effect. It questioned the judgement of the single judge bench dissolving the Special Investigation Team (SIT) and transferring the case to the CBI.
Along with the state government, state director general of police, Special Investigation headed by Hyderabad police commissioner C V Anand and Cyberabad police filed separate petitions before the division bench headed by chief justice Ujjal Bhuyan.
In the petition, the government said at a time when it was contending that the Central government is trying to destabilise the non-BJP ruled states, transferring the case to the CBI, which is a central government agency, is as good as closing the very case.
It said even the petitioners had not asked for dissolution of the SIT. It also defended the press conference held by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on the alleged poaching issue and said it could not be shown as the pretext to transfer the case to the CBI.
“As the head of a political party, the chief minister held the press conference to explain the conspiracy to destabilise his government to the people of the country. His comments were made based on the FIR and other issue which were in public domain. There is nothing to find the fault with the chief minister,” the government said.
Stating that how the evidence had reached the chief minister had nothing to do with the original petition, the government said since the chief minister was not a respondent in the case, it is not legally correct to take his comments at the press conference into consideration.
On December 26, the single-judge bench of the high court headed by Justice B Vijaysen Reddy, acting on a petition filed by BJP state general secretary G Premender Reddy on October 29, ordered transfer of the alleged poaching attempt case from the SIT to the CBI.