The Telangana High Court on Monday ordered the transfer of the MLA poaching case to the CBI from the SIT set up by the state government to investigate the case. The court order came two months after the state police raided a farm house in Moinabad and arrested three accused following a sting operation.
The Telangana government had quietly withdrawn all the previous general consents to the CBI on August 30 but this will not be an impediment since this time the court ordered the CBI to probe the case setting aside the investigations done previously by the SIT headed by Commissioner of Police CV Anand, which had made BL Santosh, BJP’s national General Secretary BL Santosh the fourth accused.
The Enforcement Directorate began questioning Nanda Kumar, an accused in the MLA poaching case, in connection with alleged money laundering. Kumar is currently lodged in the Chanchalguda Central prison.
The probe agency has obtained a court order to question him and record his statement. The ED has already questioned BRS MLA Pilot Rohith Reddy, who claimed to be the whistleblower in the case.
Reddy complained that he was being harassed by the central agency by interrogating him over two hours though he was the complainant in the case. He also wondered why the ED was investigating since no money was seized in the MLA coaching case.
Justice Bollam Vijaysen Reddy today passed the order to transfer the poaching case to the CBI and also quashed the government order to constitute the SIT as well the investigations so far carried out by it since the GO could not be sustained legally.
The High Court dismissed the plea of Premender Reddy, a General Secretary of the Telangana unit of BJP since it was a third party and thus not maintainable. It passed the order on the writ petitions filed by the three accused of poaching four BRS MLAs.
The HC order comes prior to BL Santosh’s visit to Telangana on December 27 and 28 to attend the Vistarak meeting of the party focussing on the Lok Sabha constituencies which the BJP has never won in the past.
Three accused Ramachandra Bharti, Nanda Kumar and Simhayaji were arrested by the Cyberabad Police on 26 October. Following the statements of witnesses, WhatsApp texts and on the basis of phone location, the SIT had made Santosh an accused in the case and ordered him to appear before it though its notice was later stayed by the court.