Bureaucrats who have been asked to reply to Supreme Court notices on the controversial Government Orders in the assets case of Kadapa MP Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy are in the mood to drag in the government and put paid to Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy’s efforts to avoid the government taking a stand on the orders. Several officers are planning to inform the apex court that they followed the rule book in issuing the orders and it was for the government to decide on the genuineness and validity of the Government Orders.
Many of the officers submitted a detailed note to chief secretary Pankaj Dwivedi explaining the procedure followed in issuing orders. They strongly defended the orders and indicated that the same would be reflected in the affidavits they filed before the court. Sources said this has got the top brass of the administration to begin a fire-fighting exercise. They have suggested to the officers that they need not go into the merits of the case while filing counter-affidavits.
“The issue is whether the Supreme Court shall admit the case or not. We shall convince the court that as the Central Bureau of Investigation is already seized of the matter and has questioned the officers who issued the orders, there is no need for any parallel probe,” one officer said. The Chief Minister expressed a similar view when the officers and ministers met him to discuss the case some time ago. The top brass held out the hope that the respondents would get out of the legal tangle at the admission stage itself.