Telangana HC asks case copies to be given to BL Santosh, other proposed accused

Challenging the Dec 6 order of the ACB court in rejecting implication of the proposed persons as accused, the SIT had approached the High Court.

Hyderabad: Justice D Nagarjun of the Telangana High Court on Wednesday directed the State government to serve case copies to the proposed accused, BL Santosh, Thushar Vellappally, Kottilil Narayanan Jaggu alias Jaggu Swamy and B Srinivas in the MLA poaching case.

Challenging the December 6 order of the ACB court in rejecting implication of the proposed persons as accused, the Special Investigation Team had approached the High Court. When the court observed that proposed accused were not made parties to the case, Advocate General BS Prasad, representing the SIT, said hearing the proposed accused was not necessary. He added that even the ACB court erred in giving an opportunity to them. The accused in the case were unnecessarily intervening at every stage by approaching the court abusing the process of law, the AG said. Pointing out that a memo filed by the SIT was taken up as a petition by the ACB court, the AG said substantial material was available to implicate the proposed persons and pointed out that the ACB court had erred in giving an opportunity for the proposed accused to be heard. He also contended that the ACB court erred in observing that the SIT was not a competent authority under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

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N Ramchandra Rao, representing the proposed accused, said when the High Court was seized of the matter, the actions of the SIT were ‘bad’ in law and argued that the proposed accused had to be given an opportunity of being heard before deciding the case. Accordingly, the judge directed to serve case copies on the proposed accused. The judge also directed the registry to list the case as the first matter on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Justice B Vijaysen Reddy on Wednesday continued to hear the batch of writ pleas seeking CBI investigation in the case. Senior counsel Udaya Holla argued that the SIT’s initial investigation was leaked to the Chief Minister and media by senior police officers themselves, to which Additional Advocate General Ramchandra Rao said the police had no role in the evidence going out, and pointed out that a copy of the same was given even to opponent counsels after submitting to the court.

Justice Vijaysen, who sought to know how the media telecast caused prejudice to the accused, will continue to hear the arguments of Mahesh Jethmalani representing the three prime accused on December 9.