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MLAs’ poaching case: HC rejects SIT plea to include Santhosh, 3 others as accused
The SIT sought to include the names of these four suspects in the First Information Report registered by the Moinabad police in the poaching case on the basis of evidence found against them during the course of investigation
Hyderabad
The Telangana high court on Monday struck down a review petition filed by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the state police seeking to declare Bharatiya Janata Party national general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh and three others as accused in the alleged attempt to poach four Telangana Rashtra Samithi MLAs into the BJP.
A high court bench headed by Justice D Nagarjun, which reserved its judgement on December 8 after hearing the arguments on the petition, delivered its ruling on Monday, people familiar with the matter said.
The SIT moved the high court challenging the judgement of a special court for Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) cases on December 6, which dismissed a memo filed by the Cyberabad police naming B L Santhosh, besides Tushar Vellapally and Jaggu Swamy from Kerala and advocate B Srinivas from Karimnagar, as accused.
The SIT sought to include the names of these four suspects in the First Information Report registered by the Moinabad police in the poaching case on the basis of evidence found against them during the course of investigation.
But the ACB special court had rejected the memo saying neither law and order police nor the SIT was competent to investigate the offences relating to the Prevention of Corruption Act, and only the Special Police Establishment Anti-Corruption Bureau was the competent authority to do so.
State advocate general B S Prasad, arguing for the SIT, challenged the ACB court order ,saying it had crossed its limits by rejecting the memo. “The cases pertaining to the questioning of Santhosh and three others in the alleged poaching case are before the high court. Under these circumstances, the ACB court has no locus standi in rejecting the memo to question them as accused in the case based on the gathered evidence,” the advocate general argued.
Justice Nagarjun wondered how the review petition by the SIT would be valid since another bench of the high court transferred the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation and dissolved the SIT. The advocate general, however, said the state government still had the option of challenging the transfer of the case to the CBI and hence, the review petition could be considered. However, the high court judge struck down the petition filed by the SIT.
The Moinabad police under Cyberabad registered an FIR in the case on October 26 accusing three persons – Ramachandra Bharati from Faridabad, Nanda Kumar from Hyderabad and Simhayaji Swamy from Tirupati -- who were detained from a farmhouse while allegedly attempting to poach four TRS MLAs into the BJP by offering them huge cash, posts and contracts.
The accused were booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 171B r/w 171E (bribery), 506 r/w 34 (criminal intimidation) section 8 of Prevention of Corruption Act.
The SIT, constituted on November 9 to probe the alleged MLAs’ poaching case, found, during its investigation, that Santhosh and three others were in contact with the three accused named in the FIR for luring the four TRS MLAs – Pilot Rohit Reddy, Guvvala Balaraju, B Harshavardhan Reddy and Rega Kantha Rao -- into the BJP.
