K Venkateshwarlu
Hyderabad
A Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Gavai and Justice Arvind asked how a person serving as Chief Minister can send audio and video tapes to judges.
Expressing unhappiness over Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao sending audio and video tapes to judges, the Supreme Court bench said the way the Chief Minister behaved is not right. The bench of Justice Gavai and Justice Arvind made the comments during the hearing on the BRS MLAs’ poaching case on Monday.
The Telangana government’s counsel Dushyanth Dave expressed regret at the inconvenience caused to the judges.
It may be recalled that KCR sent the audio and video clips of the MLAs’ case to prominent people across the country including Supreme Court judges. Arguing the case Dave requested the court not to hand over the BRS MLAs’ poaching case to the CBI at any cost. Dave said that the CBI has become like a caged parrot in the hands of the Central Government. The Telangana High Court Division Bench supported at one time and opposed the High Court single bench verdict at another time.
BJP leaders ‘ill-intentionally’ filed a petition demanding a CBI probe while the SIT probe was going on. The case will be watered down if it goes to the CBI. The evidence collected till now will be destroyed if the probe goes to the CBI, Dave argued on behalf of the Telangana government.
However, the court stopped the hearing abruptly when time ended. At that point, Dave requested the court to take up the hearing on Friday. Responding to Dave’s appeal, the court made it clear that it is not possible to conduct the hearing on Friday.
The bench of Justice Gavai and Justice Arvind Kumar referred the case to the bench of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) and said that the CJI will take a decision on further hearing.
“The CJI will take a decision on whether to appoint another bench or to refer the case to the vacation bench,” the bench of Justice Gavai and Justice Arvind Kumar said.
\The Telangana government had approached the Supreme Court challenging the High Court verdict to hand over the BRS MLAs’ poaching case to the CBI from the SIT.
Senior counsels Siddhartha Luthra and Dushyanth Dave argued for the Telangana government in the Supreme Court and pointed out that the evidence is against the BJP and how the High Court can hand over the case to the CBI. They also requested the court to give more time to argue the case.
