Tanisha Rana
Published on: November 6, 2022 at 20:47 IST
The Supreme Court deferred the case’s hearing for November 7, Monday, but the three individuals who had been detained by the Telangana Police in connection with an alleged BJP attempt to poach MLAs from the state’s ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) did not receive any relief from the Court on Friday.
The three men, Ramachandra Bharati, Nanda Kumar, and Simhayaji Swamy, who are alleged to be BJP agents, appealed to the Supreme Court against Telangana High Court order dated October 29 ordering them to appear before the Cyberabad Commissionerate’s Commissioner of police.
However, a bench of Justices BR Gavai and BV Nagarathna deferred the hearing until Monday of the next week.
The three individuals are accused of approaching Pilot Rohith Reddy, the leader of the TRS, to persuade TRS legislators to switch to the BJP.
On the basis of a complaint from Reddy, the accused was detained by the Cyberabad Police in October.
The police requested remand, but a special court denied it after observing that their arrest went against the guidelines in Arnesh Kumar since notice under Section 41A of the Criminal Procedure Code was not given.
In a decision that was overturned by the High Court, it was stated that the police were free to visit the magistrate and request that the accused be remanded to judicial custody.
However, the High Court adjourned the investigation into the issue until Friday, noting that the complaint appeared to be politically motivated, while ruling on another writ petition submitted by the petitioners.
The four remained in custody.
The argument, made through Advocate Parijat Kishore, claimed that the High Court had improperly ordered them to surrender because no money had been collected.
Additionally, the arrest broke Satendar Antil’s guidelines because no notice was given and the offence carries a sentence of up to seven years in jail.
According to the plea, the complaint was submitted at the direction of TRS leaders in order to disparage the BJP and incriminate the petitioners.
“The manner in which investigation is being conducted gives an impression that the same is not being done in fair manner and is done with ulterior motive to tarnish image of the ruling central government as instead of investigation officer, the commissioner of police, Cyberabad, Commissionerate is conducting the investigation,” the petition stated.
Additionally, it was claimed that the investigating Commissioner visited the purported crime scene before the crime was reported and conducted interviews.
In addition, charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act were brought against the petitioners even before a preliminary investigation was finished.
It was argued that this is unlawful because, according to the Act, MLAs are not public servants.
“Panchama of the remand case diary was drafted on 26.10.2022 at 12:30 hours and concluded at 14:30 hours on the same day. The signatures of the mediators are made on 27.10.2022. Further, the seizure proceedings which were drafted on 26.10.2022, also contains signatures of the officials made on 26.10.2022 and the signature of the mediators made on 27.10.2022,” the petition states.