MLAs' poaching case

Hyderabad, Jan (IANS) The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government in Telangana has filed an appeal in the Telangana High Court challenging the court order transferring the case relating to alleged attempts to poach BRS MLAs to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The government has challenged the order passed by a single-judge bench directing the CBI to probe the sensational case.

The appeal is likely to be taken up for hearing by a division bench headed by Chief Justice Ujwal Bhuyan.

On December 26, Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy had entrusted the investigation into the MLAs' poaching case to the central agency after hearing the petitions filed by the accused persons, who argued that they have no faith in the probe by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the state government.

The court had then quashed the government order constituting the SIT to probe the case. However, following a plea filed by the government, the court stayed implementation of the order till the copies of the judgement are made available.

After studying the judgement, the BRS government decided to file the appeal.

Incidentally, the high court had dismissed a petition seeking CBI probe into the matter in November last year. However, accused Ramachandra Bharati, K. Nanda Kumar and D.P.S.K.V.N. Simhayaji had moved the Supreme Court, which then directed the high court to decide on the petitions seeking transfer of probe to the CBI.

The three accused were arrested by Cyberabad police from a farmhouse at Moinabad near Hyderabad on the night of October 26, when they were allegedly trying to lure four MLAs of BRS with offers of huge money.

The Cyberabad police conducted the raid based on a tip-off by Pilot Rohit Reddy, one of the BRS MLAs, who had alleged that the accused offered Rs 100 crore to him and Rs 50 crore each to the three other MLAs for defecting to BJP.

The state government had subsequently constituted an SIT headed by Hyderabad Police Commissioner C.V. Anand to probe the case.

BJP General Secretary B.L. Santosh; Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) President Tushar Vellapally; a doctor from Kerala, Jaggu Swamy; lawyers Srinivas and Pratap Goud; and Nanda Kumar's wife Chitralekha were also summoned by the SIT for questioning.

Santosh, Vellapally and Jaggu Swamy had approached the high court and secured a stay on the notices.

The high court had on December 1 granted conditional bail to the accused persons.

However, Ramachandra Bharati and Nanda Kumar were re-arrested by the police soon after their release from jail on December 8 in connection with some other cases registered against them.

While Ramachandra Bharati was booked for holding multiple passports, Aadhaar cards and other documents, five cases were registered against Nanda Kumar for cheating and other offences.