New Delhi: The Telangana government on Tuesday filed two special leave petitions in the Supreme Court, seeking quashing of the Telangana High Court’s decisions to hand over the probe into the attempted poaching of BRS MLAs to the CBI.
In an SLP, the State challenged the decision of a Division Bench of the High Court headed by Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuiyan, which had dismissed all the six writ appeal petitions filed by it, seeking to set aside the single judge’s direction In which the CBI was directed to investigate the attempted poaching case. In the second SLP Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy’s judgment which ordered a CBI probe into the attempted poaching case. Both these petitions were yet to be listed for hearing.
Earlier, here in Hyderabad, the State Government, headed by Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy, requesting the judge to suspend the order dated December 26, 2022, for three weeks, to facilitate him to approach the Supreme Court. Advocate General B.S. Prasad, while approaching IA, Justice B.K. Mentioned about the matter in the morning before Vijaysen Reddy. The judge posted it for hearing at 2.30 pm.
The AG told the bench that on Monday, a division bench of Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuiyan and Justice N Tukaramji had dismissed all the six writ appeals filed by the state government on technical grounds. The Division Bench passed the judgment on the basis of criminal jurisdiction. Thus the matter pertains to Inter-Court Appeal. The AG said that an appeal against the direction of the bench could not lie before the Telangana High Court.
The AG said that the appeal should be filed by the state before the Supreme Court. He told the bench that the CBI may insist on the transfer of the case in the backdrop of the division bench dismissing all appeal petitions of the state and handing over the files related to the poaching attempt.
The AG said that the state government is hopeful of interim relief from the Supreme Court as the division bench did not decide the appeals on merits. The AG said that the appeal was dismissed only on technical grounds of criminal jurisdiction. Senior advocate and BJP general secretary Premender Reddy, appearing for all the three accused in the case, opposed the AG’s plea.
He argued that the AG’s contentions cannot be accepted since the doctrine of merger is applicable in the present case. He argued that the State had gone in appeal against the order of the Single Judge before a Division Bench headed by the Chief Justice. After the batch of appeals is dismissed by the Bench, the State cannot seek suspension of the order for CBI probe in the matter before the Single Judge, he said. This was against the principle of merger, he argued.
Deputy Solicitor General of India Garhi Praveen Kumar informed the bench that the CBI had already written to the Chief Secretary of Telangana to hand over the files related to the poaching attempt case. After hearing the submissions of all the lawyers, Justice B. Vijayasena Reddy directed the AG to reserve the permission or oral order of the Chief Justice for hearing the interim application. The AG told the judge that he would mention the matter before the Chief Justice on Wednesday and would get back to the judge after the lunch break session.
