The letter written by Andhra Pradesh CM Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy to Chief Justice of India complaining against Supreme Court judge N V Ramana and a few other high court judges, seems to be showing some impact.
A day after vacating the stay on CID probe against retired tehsildar of Thullur A Sudheer Babu in Amaravati land scam, the high court on Thursday gave a rude shock to state election commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar, who tried to corner the Jagan government saying it was not releasing funds to the SEC.
Nimmagadda moved the high court saying that the state government had withheld release of Rs 40 lakh due to be given to the SEC for the conduct of local body elections, but the state government pleader brought to the notice of the court that the money had already been released on Tuesday morning itself.
The pleader also clarified to the court on the allegation of Nimmagadda that the state government was not cooperating with the SEC for conducting free and fair elections. He said whenever the elections are announced, the government would extend all cooperation.
Nimmagadda also alleged that the government had not cleared various pending bills to be paid to lawyers. But the court asked him to produce some instances of pending bills not paid.
When Nimmagadda pointed out a letter written by him wherein he had asked for additional attenders to be provided for him at his residence and that his residence at Hyderabad be declared the official residence of the state election commissioner, the high court judge got furious.
He asked Nimmagadda as to why he, being the SEC for Andhra Pradesh, needed an official residence in Hyderabad and another residence In Vijayawada.
“Is it not waste of public money? This cannot be expected of the SEC,” the court said, adding that Nimmagadda has not been able to show any such proof except non-payment of certain amounts.
