VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court bench of Justice Kanchireddy Suresh Reddy and Justice Kuncham Maheswara Rao on Friday upheld the court registry’s objections over inclusion of names of the Chief Minister and the Governor’s Secretary in the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking the court’s intervention for a judicial inquiry into the Tirupati stampede, in which six devotees were killed and 40 injured.
The bench posted the matter next week for further hearing and instructed the petitioner to submit the updated petition removing the names.
A farmer from Pandurangapuram village in Kurnool district has filed the PIL urging the court to issue necessary orders for a probe.
Siva Prasad Reddy, the petitioner’s counsel, presented his arguments requesting the court to allow the petition as the lunch motion petition as this was the second incident where people died in stampede during the TDP government, headed by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
He also held that Naidu should take moral responsibility for the stampede. However, the bench upheld the exclusion of names of the Chief Minister and the Governor’s Secretary from the list of respondents in the petition.