The Supreme Court on Friday issued formal notice to the CBI in a case concerning allegations that the BJP conspired to poach Telangana’s Bharat Rashtra Samiti legislators.
A Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and M.M. Sundresh however said there was no need to issue notice to the Centre.
The Telangana government, represented by senior advocate Dushyant Dave, has questioned a State High Court decision to transfer the case to the CBI when the State had already set up a seven-member Special Investigation Team to probe the allegations of poaching. Mr. Dave had contended that a CBI probe would prove ineffective as the agency was “controlled” by the ruling BJP in the Centre.
On March 13, the Bench orally made it clear that the CBI should hold its hands while the case is now with the apex court.
On Friday, Justice Khanna conveyed the same message to the Telangana Police.
“We are making it clear that the Telangana Police will not continue with the investigation,” Justice Khanna addressed Mr. Dave.
“There is no question about that. We had stopped long back… we are awaiting the outcome,” Mr. Dave assured.
The court listed the case after 10 days.
Three people — Ramachandra Bharati alias Satish Sharma, Nandu Kumar and Simhayaji Swamy — were already named as accused in the case after a complaint was lodged by BRS MLA Pilot Rohith Reddy, among four legislators, against them on October 26.
The trio was arrested while they were allegedly trying to lure the four MLAs of the ruling BRS to join the BJP. Recently, they were granted bail by the High Court.
As per the FIR copy, Mr. Reddy alleged that the accused offered him ₹100 crore and in return the legislator had to leave the BRS and contest as a BJP candidate in the next Assembly election.
They had allegedly asked Mr. Reddy to bring more BRS MLAs by offering ₹50 crore each to join the BJP.
