The Telangana high court on Tuesday dismissed the petition of the Bharatiya Janata Party for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged attempt to poach four Telangana Rashtra Samithi MLAs.
A division bench of the state high court comprising chief justice Ujjal Bhuyan and justice C V Bhaskar Reddy rejected the review petition filed by BJP state general secretary G Premender Reddy, who wanted that the case be handed over to the CBI for an impartial probe, since the party had no faith in the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Telangana police, constituted by the state government.
Rejecting the petition, the high court ruled that the SIT headed by Hyderabad police commissioner C V Anand, would continue the investigation under the supervision of the court, instead of the government.
The bench said a single judge would monitor the investigation into the case relating to the arrest of three alleged agents of the BJP for “luring” four TRS MLAs into the BJP.
It directed that the SIT shall not disclose the progress of the investigation to political and executive authorities including the chief minister’s office (CMO).
The bench asked the SIT to report to court and no one else. The team has also been directed not to leak information to media. It asked the SIT to submit a report to the court on November 29 on the progress of the investigation.
On October 26, the Cyberabad police detained three persons – Nanda Kumar, a hotelier from Hyderabad, Swami Ramachandra Bharati alias S Satish Sharma from Faridabad and Simhayajulu from Tirupati at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Hyderabad, while they were allegedly trying to lure the four TRS MLAs Pilot Rohit Reddy, Guvvala Balaraju, B Harshavardhan Reddy and Rega Kantha Rao.
Though the ACB court released the three accused on October 27 on technical ground, they were arrested a day later following a high court order. They have since been lodged in the Chanchalguda central prison in Hyderabad.
On the same day, the BJP general secretary filed a petition in the high court seeking a CBI probe into the case.
The high court on October 29 stayed the ongoing investigation into the case and asked the state government and other respondents to file the counter on BJP petition. The court lifted the stay on November 8.
The state government on November 9 constituted a seven-member SIT to probe the case.