The Andhra Pradesh High Court took suo motu cognisance of the withdrawal of 11 criminal complaints filed against Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy for allegedly making hate speeches five years ago against the then Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, and casting aspersions on his decision to locate the capital in Amaravati.
The court directed its registry to file revision cases in respect of all those complaints.
The impugned criminal complaints were registered against Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy in different jurisdictions in and around the year 2016, and orders were passed by various magistrates during that period.
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A single-judge Bench of the High Court, comprising Justice K. Lalitha, heard the matter on Wednesday and posted it to June 25 for further arguments.
Taking strong objection to what he called an administrative decision to seek a suo motu revision of the cases, Advocate-General (A-G) S. Sriram said correcting judicial orders passed by the lower courts was essentially a judicial course, and if it was decided that the said orders were fraught with errors of procedure, the power which the court exercised ought to be judicial and not on the administrative side.
He observed that the court’s decision to go for a revision of the cases was tantamount to stepping into the shoes of the complainants.
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Mr. Sriram further contended that it was impermissible for the court to take a suo motu exercise on the administrative side, and if such a decision had already been taken, the papers being placed before it would be only to secure judicial approval for it, whereas neither Section 482 nor Section 483 of the Criminal Procedure Code permitted such a course to be adopted by the Registrar (judicial).
Mr. Sriram insisted that he was appearing only for the State, that too because there were allegations against the police machinery in the reference the Registrar (judicial) had drawn from Justice Rakesh Kumar’s order.