A vacation bench of the AP High Court comprising Justice G. Chandraiah and Justice N. Ravi Shankar provided some respite to DGP V. Dinesh Reddy, by granting interim suspension of an order passed against him by a single judge. Mr S.V. Ramana Murthy, additional DGP of the CID also got a breather with the order.
On April 11, Justice Ramesh Ranganathan had directed the state government to order a probe by a senior IAS or IPS officer into allegations and counter-allegations made by Mr Reddy’s IAS batchmate, Mr Umesh Kumar and Mr Dinesh Reddy. Mr Umesh Kumar had earlier charged Mr Dinesh Reddy with concealing the property transactions made by his wife. At the same time, Mr Umesh Kumar is facing corruption charges and also the case of a criminal conspiracy he allegedly hatched with a SEZ consultant to defame Mr Dinesh Reddy.
Plea against DGP likely after hols
Justice Ranganathan had directed the AP High Court registry to launch criminal contempt proceedings against DGP Dinesh Reddy and CID chief Ramana Murthy for willfully suppressing information related to the way the case against IPS officer Umesh Kumar was registered and also for filing a false affidavit before the HC in this regard.
He also directed the registry to initiate suo motu contempt proceedings against the two police officers for not placing the true facts before initiating a cheating case against Mr Umesh Kumar. Subsequently, Mr Dinesh Reddy had filed an appeal on his own against the order and Mr Ramana Murthy filed two appeals, one on his own and another in his capacity as CID chief.
Mr Vedula Venkata Ramana, the senior counsel appearing for Mr Dinesh Reddy, argued that the plea of Mr Umesh Kumar was not maintainable as no individual has any right to compel an appointing authority to initiate disciplinary action against its employee. He said that the entire proceedings are sought to be projected as a spat between two senior officers of the police force, which was wholly incorrect.
Mr Krishna Murthy, additional advocate-general arguing on behalf of the CID contended that there was no suppression of material facts which would constitute criminal contempt under the Contempt of Courts Act. The documents were placed on record and they have been made available to Mr Umesh Kumar’s counsel.
Mr Sripada Prabhakar, the counsel for Mr Umesh Kumar, opposed the contention of the counsel for Mr Dinesh and Mr Ramana Murthy and said that the appellants suppressed several material facts in the writ and they did not file several documents even in the appeals.