The Supreme Court on Monday declined to interfere with the Andhra Pradesh High Court’s order dismissing a writ petition filed by Y.S. Vijayamma, wife of late Y.S. Rajasekara Reddy, former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh for a CBI probe into the alleged disproportionate assets of Telugu Desam leader N. Chandrababu Naidu.
A Bench of Justices T.S. Thakur and Ibrahim Kalifullah, however, said it would be open to Ms. Vijayamma to file a proper complaint under Section 200 Cr.P.C. before a competent court or authority against Mr. Naidu and others.
The Bench made it clear that if no action was taken on the complaint, it would be open to her to approach the High Court for a direction to investigate into the complaint. The Bench, while dismissing Ms. Vijayamma’s petition, said that it was not going into the merits of her allegations.
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Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani, appearing for Ms. Vijayamma argued that the High Court had committed an error in dismissing the petition, when it had entertained a similar plea against her son, Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy from an MLA belonging to the TDP.
The High Court ought not to have discriminated while passing orders and take a stand that the petition was filed by a political rival.
He said filing a complaint before a competent court would take a long time and the State government would not grant sanction for prosecution and render any assistance in the case. When the High Court at the first instance chose to order a preliminary enquiry, should not have dismissed the petition subsequently, he argued. He wanted the preliminary probe to continue.
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Senior counsel Harish Salve, appearing for Reliance, senior counsel A.K. Ganguly, appearing for Mr. Naidu and senior counsel Anil Divan, appearing for Mr. Ramoji Rao justified the High Court order and said it did not call for any interference.
The Bench also permitted YSR Congress Party president Jaganmohan Reddy to withdraw his appeal in the Supreme Court seeking bail in the cases registered against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
It permitted senior counsel Ram Jethmalani, appearing for Mr. Jagan to withdraw the appeal with liberty to file the same at a later stage.
In his appeal against the Andhra Pradesh High Court order dated July 4 dismissing his bail plea, Mr. Jagan said there was complete and utter misapplication of the principles governing bail jurisprudence by the High Court and this had led to a continuing deprivation of his rights under Article 21 of the Constitution.
Unfortunate: YSRC
Hyderabad Special Correspondent adds: The YSR Congress has termed as unfortunate the Supreme Court’s verdict rejecting the petition filed by party’s honorary president Y.S. Vijayamma seeking probe into TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu’s disproportionate assets.
The rejection of the plea should not be construed as court giving clean chit to Mr. Naidu and the court had suggested that the issues raised in the petition could be referred to various agencies including the CBI and Enforcement Directorate. The party did not see the verdict as a setback and future course of action would be decided after discussion within the party, she said.