VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Tuesday stayed the orders of single judge directing the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to investigate the indifferent attitude of the forest and police departments in the cases pertaining to smuggling of red sanders and other forest produce.
A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur and Justice AV Sesha Sai, asked the respondents in the case to file a counter.
In 2013, Kadapa DFO issued proceedings to seize an Innova car on a charge that it was piloting a vehicle smuggling red sanders. The car owner Yerraguntla Balachandrudu filed an appeal in Nandyal III Additional Court. However, his appeal was struck down and Balachandrudu approached the High Court in 2014.
Recently hearing the case, the single judge took exception to the fact that police had filed the chargesheet in the case in 2023, 10 years after the actual incident happened.
Stating that none of the reasons cited by the police department are acceptable, he ordered a SIT inquiry into the indifferent attitude adopted by police in smuggling cases.
SIT was asked to find out the number of cases involving the smuggling of red sanders and other forest produce and the status of those cases and submit a detailed report to the MoEF within 12 weeks. Further, the High Court Registry was directed to take the entire case suo motu. Forest officials went for an appeal against the single judge's directions for the constitution of SIT against them.
Appearing on their behalf, Advocate General S Sriram said the single judge had issued orders beyond his limits. Before the formation of SIT, the government should have been notified and asked for an explanation, he said. He further argued that without sufficient evidence and details, the single judge had issued orders to constitute SIT.