Question paper leak case: No interim relief for Bandi Sanjay

Telangana High Court did not grant interim relief to BJP State president Bandi Sanjay in the question paper leak case

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court did not grant interim relief to BJP State president Bandi Sanjay in the question paper leak case, with Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan not conceding to his request to grant an order of no coercive steps to be taken by the police against him.

The Chief Justice, issuing notices to the Kamalapur police and the complainant, the school headmaster Maturi Shiva Kumar on Friday, refused to pass any interim relief in favour of Bandi Sanjay and adjourned the case to the month of June.

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As the petitioner was already enlarged on bail, there was no necessity for issuing the order of no coercive steps to be taken, the Chief Justice observed. The Chief Justice also wondered why there were instances of paper leakage across the country including Gujarat, Bihar and Assam.

Advocate General BS Prasad said Bandi Sanjay was a violator of law. The conspiracy was planned from March 1 itself. The investigation connects the chain of events between the accused and the police have already gathered evidence, the AG said.

The question paper was leaked at the instance of Bandi Sanjay, who did not cooperate with the police and even refused to hand over his mobile. The police will soon find out where the mobile has gone, the AG said.

Senior Counsel L Ravichander, arguing on Sanjay’s behalf in the quash petition, alleged that the complainant Shiva Kumar, the headmaster in the school, was unaware of what was happening in the exam centre till he knew from others.

The statement that a juvenile climbed a tree, entered the classroom and took a photograph of the question paper from another student, leading to the circulation of the paper in an 20 SSC WhatsApp group was ‘a vague story’, Ravichander argued.

The allegation against Bandi Sanjay was that he instructed the accused Nos. 2 and 3 to “exploit the situation”, Ravinchander said, adding that even if this was assumed to be true, it would not amount to paper leakage. Sanjay had already given a complaint that he lost his mobile phone. Did the State police not have the technology to retrieve the required data from cloud storage, he asked.