The AP High Court on Monday wanted to know the stand of the Centre and the state government on the plea to conduct a probe into the IMG Bharata land deal. A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice P.C. Ghose and Justice Vilas V. Afzulpurkar was dealing with two writ petitions by Mr T. Sriranga Rao of Telangana Advocates Association and senior journalist A.B.K. Prasad, auditor V. Vijaya Sai Reddy.

The petitioners brought to the notice of the court that the state government had issued a GO in 2006 asking the CBI to probe the land deal. However, the CBI could not take up the investigation citing lack of manpower and that it was pre-occupied with other high profile cases. Reacting to it, acting Chief Justice Ghose asked how the CBI can shirk its responsibility under the pretext of pre-occupation with other cases. “Can we say that we will not take up new cases? How can you say you will not take up this case?” he asked.

Justice Ghose said the CBI was empowered to take up cases of other states also, even though it was established under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act and the CBI cannot say that it will not take up new cases due to workload. Mr P. Kesava Rao, counsel for the CBI replied that the CBI has conveyed its difficulties to the state government when the government intended to seek a probe into the deal.

Then Justice Ghose asked why they could not even conduct a preliminary inquiry to find out if the case needed a full-fledged probe. CBI counsel said that the state government can conduct a preliminary probe through the CID or any other agency instead of asking the CBI. At one stage, the acting Chief Justice asked the CBI to conduct a preliminary probe into the land deal, but later he instructed the CBI counsel to inform the court about the constraints of the CBI in conducting a probe into the land deal as desired by the state government.

The TD government allotted about 800 acres of land at Gachibowli to IMG Bharata Academies Pvt Ltd at Rs 50,000 per acre and the allotment was cancelled by the Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy government citing alleged irregularities. The Bench granted two weeks’ times to the Centre and the state government and other respondents to file their counter affidavits and adjourned the hearing.

HC: justify MLC nomination
The AP High Court on Monday asked the state government to justify the nomination of five members to the Legislative Council by next Monday. The court was dealing with a plea by Venkateswara Rao challenging the nominations of Dr Chakrapani, Farookh Hussain, Reddappa Reddy, A. Lakshmi and Rajeshwar Rao to the Legislative Council without there being a bio-data of the candidates being available for scrutiny. The Bench found that even though the plea was filed about eight months ago, the government did not respond despite several adjournments and granted a week as a last chance for it to respond.

Petition against Umesh dismissed
The AP High Court on Monday dismissed a petition seeking a CBI probe into alleged irregularities, including misappropriation of government funds by Umesh Kumar while he was serving as inspector general of the Greyhounds, as withdrawn. A. Pavan Kumar, a resident of the city filed the plea. The court found that the petitioner had failed to place the material to substantiate the charges against the officer and the relevant provisions under the law.