Granting interim protection to former chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao and former state irrigation minister T Harish Rao, the Telangana High Court Tuesday ordered the state government not to take “any adverse action against the petitioners based on the findings of the PC Ghose Commission of Inquiry report” till the next date of hearing on October 7.
The Commission’s report into the planning and execution of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) was tabled in the state Assembly on Sunday, following which Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy announced that the probe into alleged irregularities in the scheme will be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The high court bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G M Mohiuddin, however, clarified that “the CBI investigation will not be based on findings of the PC Ghose Commission of Inquiry.”
The court’s direction came after Advocate General A Sudarshan Reddy informed it that while the matter had been referred to the CBI, the referral was based on a report from the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) and other material, not solely on the Commission’s findings. He contended that only the P C Ghose Commission report was tabled and discussed in the Assembly.
Meanwhile, the petitioners’ counsel – senior advocates C Aryama Sundaram and Dama Sheshadri Naidu – expressed concern that the state would use the Commission’s adverse findings to form the basis of the CBI investigation against the two Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leaders. They repeatedly argued that the state’s move was a “clever strategy” to circumvent the legal process and unfairly target them. They contended that the inquiry report should not be referred to the central agency.
The AG assured the court that the CBI investigation would be independent and not be based on the findings of the Commission’s report alone. He stated that an action-taken report on the Commission’s findings, as required by Section 3(4) of the Commissions of Inquiry Act, had not yet been submitted to the Assembly. The court recorded the submissions from both sides, stating that based on the state’s submission, the apprehension of the petitioners that the CBI inquiry would be based on the Commission’s findings was “taken care of”.
The court further clarified that the CBI would have to rely on its own investigation and other reports, such as the NDSA report, which has been placed before the government.
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The high court ordered both parties to complete their pleadings on the matter. It is set to take up the main challenge to the Commission’s report after the court’s vacation.
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