Even as the Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the decks for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the investigation of the “Cash for MLAs” case from Telangana police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT), the central agency has started mounting pressure on the state government.
Between December 31 and February 6, the CBI has written as many as five letters to the Telangana government to hand over the files pertaining to alleged attempt to poach four Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLAs into the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Unable to withstand the pressure, the Telangana government moved the single judge bench, then division bench of the high court and finally, the Supreme Court to prevent the CBI from taking over the MLAs’ poaching case, but it has drawn blank everywhere.
On Wednesday, a division bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud refused to take up the special leave petition of the state government challenging the high court judgement. The bench posted the case to February 17 for hearing.
Senior Supreme Court advocate Siddharth Luthra made a special mention before the CJI and requested for a stay on the high court judgement or an order of status quo.
He said the CBI had already been bringing pressure on the state police to hand over the files pertaining to the investigation into alleged MLAs’ poaching case and had written letter to the state chief secretary several times.
“Once the investigation files are handed over to the CBI, the case would get diluted. Hence, the government is asking for a status quo or a stay on the high court judgement,” Luthra said.
Justice Chandrachud, however, rejected the state government’s plea and refused to grant a stay on the high court judgement. He also turned down the request to take up the petition at the earliest.
“We shall take up the hearing on February 17 and examine all the issues. If there is any merit in the argument of the state government, we shall direct the CBI to return the files to the state police,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Telangana high court, too, refused to entertain the state government’s request for keeping the judgement in abeyance for two weeks and direct the single judge bench to take up the review petition.
Responding to the request put forth by state advocate general B S Prasad, high court chief justice Ujjal Bhuyan said the single-judge bench should not review the judgement given by the division bench and the government would have to seek the remedy only from Supreme Court.
“Since the judgement has already been challenged in the Supreme Court, the government would have to wait for its decision,” Justice Bhuyan said.
