Supreme Court asks Telangana cops to not probe BRS MLAs poaching case

The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Telangana police not to continue with its probe into the alleged criminal conspiracy behind an alleged attempt to poach BRS MLAs by the BJP.

This comes days after the top court asked the CBI not to take up the investigation as per the direction of the Telangana High Court.

Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for the Telangana police, submitted before a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and M M Sundresh that the matter was mentioned for hearing as no formal notice was issued on the last date of hearing on March 13.

The court issued notice to the central agency, the BJP and others.

It also said Telangana police also can't continue with its probe.

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On March 13, the court was told that the Telangana police had said that they hadn't yet handed over the case materials to the central agency, CBI.

The court had then ordered for posting the matter in July for further hearing.

The Telangana police approached the Supreme Court against the High Court's February 6 order which had upheld the direction for CBI probe into the matter.

The plea by the state government contended the High Court has failed to consider that the CBI directly works under the Central Government and is under the control of the office of the Prime Minister and the Home Ministry.

It accused the BJP of adopting illegal and criminal steps to destabilise the Telangana government, therefore, the High Court therefore could not have entrusted the investigation to CBI in any case.

On February 6, the division bench had upheld the earlier order of a single judge on December 26, 2022 transferring the case to CBI.

The state government alleged the involvement of some top BJP leaders to poach its four MLAs, in order “to topple his government.”

According to the FIR by the state police, MLA Rohith Reddy alleged that the accused had on October 26, 2022 offered him Rs 100 crore and in return the legislator had to leave the BRS.

The state government had on November 9, 2022 formed an SIT, comprising state police officers to investigate the matter.

The High Court has "unnecessarily" concluded that release of the CD by the Chief Minister on November 3, 2022 amounted to interference with the investigation, the state government claimed.