The High Court directed the district judge of Khammam on Wednesday to conduct an inquiry to establish the genuineness of a petitioner who alleged that he had paid a huge amount as bribe to horticulture minister Ramreddy Venkat Reddy and some officials to run a school in the district.
A division bench comprising chief justice PC Ghose and Vilas V Afzulpurkar gave the directions while dealing with an appeal by Sri Chaitanya Techno School, represented by its secretary, challenging an order of a single judge
on January 30 directive to the Warangal Rural police superintendent to probe the antecedents of the petitioner to find out whether he was the original petitioner or not.
The petition was originally signed by a person, Gugulothu Chinna, who claimed to be the secretary and correspondent of Sri Chaitanya Techno School at Enkoor village, and V Ramesh, the school headmaster.
When the petition came up for hearing before the single judge, another man, by the same name of Gugulothu Chinna, appeared before the judge and claimed that he was not connected with the school in any manner and that the petition was filed in his name without his knowledge. The counsel, appearing for the school, said that the petition had been signed by another person following which the judge ordered the appearance of the said person. When another person also gave some evasive replies, the judge ordered a probe into the antecedents of the petitioner.
Aggrieved by the order of the single judge, the school filed an appeal before the bench. After conducting a probe, the Warangal district police submitted a report that the petition filed by Gugulothu Chinna
was found to be impersonated. The police submitted that the petition was filed at the instance of a person from Khamman, Papa Rao, who runs an NGO, Support.
Taking objection to the police findings, the counsel for the school, PV Krishnaiah, said that he had reservations on the report as the police prepared it under the influence of the minister who is in-charge of Warangal district.
The division bench disposed the appeal by directing the district judge to conduct an enquiry and told Srikanth, counsel for the government, to pass on the enquiry report of the police to the district judge along with the order.
The district judge was directed to place the enquiry report before the single judge within two weeks.