NEW DELHI: Attorney General K K Venugopal on Monday refused to grant consent to initiate contempt proceedings against Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy for casting aspersions on the judiciary.
The A-G, however, termed the Andhra CM’s letter to Chief Justice of India S A Bobde levelling serious allegations against senior SC judge N V Ramana and releasing the content of the letter to media “prima facie contumacious”.
In his letter to the CJI, Jagan had also claimed Justice Ramana was acting on behalf of Andhra Pradesh opposition leader Chandrababu Naidu. Elaborating why he would not initiate contempt of court proceedings, Venugopal said, “Since the letter was addressed directly to the Chief Justice of India, the CJI is seized of the case and it would not be appropriate for me to deal with it.” The AG’s opinion came on a permission plea filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay who had sought permission to begin contempt of court proceedings against the Andhra Pradesh CM over his October 6 letter alleging Ramana was influencing the Andhra Pradesh High Court.
Upadhyay is one of petitioners whose plea led a bench headed by Justice Ramana to direct high courts to expedite cases against sitting and former MPs and MLAs. He had written to the Attorney General pointing out that 31 criminal cases were pending against Jagan.