The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will hear on February 17 two special leave petitions filed by Telangana seeking suspension of the orders issued by the Telangana High Court on handing over the probe into the attempted poaching of BRS MLAs to the CBI. Has been done. Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for Telangana, mentioned the pleas seeking early hearing before an SC bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala.
The bench sought to know from the counsel whether the matter is related to the matter mentioned by senior advocate Dushyant Dave the previous day. When the counsel confirmed that it was the same case, the bench said that the matter would be heard on February 17. Mr. Luthra requested the bench to list the matter on February 13 and pass an oral order restraining the CBI from taking over the investigation of the matter. The bench turned down both the requests.
Meanwhile, in Hyderabad, the Telangana High Court turned down the state government’s request to hear an interim plea seeking to stay the single judge’s decision to hand over the probe into the attempted poaching case of BRS MLAs to the CBI.
Advocate General BS Prasad, Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuiyan and Justice N. Tukaramji and requested the bench to allow Justice B. Allow Vijayasena Reddy to hear the IA, which he produced in the latter’s court. The bench headed by the CJI declined to give any direction in the matter.
The Chief Justice noted that the single judge had already pronounced the judgment in a batch of writ petitions relating to the attempted poaching of BRS MLAs being probed by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Telangana Police. As per the order passed by the Single Judge on December 12, 2022, the investigation of the case was to be handed over to the CBI.
The state had filed six appeal petitions before the division bench questioning the order of the single judge. The CJI said that this court has already dismissed all the appeals, they are not maintainable. The order passed by the Division Bench of the Chief Justice was final. The Bench said that the Single Judge cannot exercise his jurisdiction and cannot hear any appeal in this matter again.
“Any order against our order will have to be in the Supreme Court only”, said the CJI. The previous day, the state for the first time appointed Justice B.K. The IA had approached Vijaysen Reddy and requested him to suspend the order handing over the probe to the CBI for three weeks. The AG argued that the CBI was insisting on handing over the file relating to the attempted poaching case of BRS MLAs on the basis of the single judge’s order.
The AG clarified that the state government was hopeful that it would obtain interim relief from the Supreme Court as the Division Bench had decided the matter on the basis of criminal jurisdiction and not on merits. The AG said that suspension of the order was necessary to enable the state to approach the apex court.
After hearing the arguments of senior counsel appearing for the AG and other parties, the judge asked the AG to secure directions or oral orders from the bench headed by the CJ to hear the IA. A division bench headed by the chief justice on Wednesday rejected the AG’s request after he mentioned the matter and clarified that an appeal against the order of the bench can be made only in the Supreme Court.
With this, the legal battle waged by the Telangana government over handing over the probe into the attempted poaching case of BRS MLAs has now moved to the apex court.