HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Wednesday saw two top lawyers of the country slugging it out over the case relating to the attempt to poach four TRS MLAs in a farmhouse in Moinabad in Hyderabad on October 26. At one stage they were seen arguing at the top of their voice to get their point across over the writ petition filed seeking transfer of the case to the CBI or staying the ongoing probe by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the case. Dushyanth Dave, senior counsel representing the Telangana government in the poaching case, submitted a report on the investigation by SIT to Justice B Vijaysen Reddy, with documents, CDs and pen drives.
After submitting the report, he stated that the State government had sufficient evidence against all of the accused, including Kore Nandu Kumar, Rama Chandra Bharati, Simhayaji, advocate Bhusarapu Srinivas, Bharat Dharma Jena Sena president Tushar Vellapally from Kerala, among others. He said that the three defendants, who were currently in prison, were in frequent contact with TRS MLA Rohit Reddy, requesting his appointment to discuss the matter of buying TRS MLAs for hundreds of crores of rupees for the BJP. He argued that it was an attempt to overthrow the TRS government, and in order to block such an attempt, the State government had rightfully set a trap at the Moinabad farmhouse, catching the three accused in it as well as other accused who are connected to these three.
Senior Supreme Court counsel Mahesh Jethmalani, appearing for the three defendants, informed the court that they had no affiliation with any political organisation. Because the cases were filed under the PC Act, which deals with electoral offences, including providing bribe to a public official or pleading with someone to vote for a specific party, the police lodged a case against the three accused without giving it a second thought, he said. Dave explained to the court why the BJP was so eager to transfer the probe into Poachgate to another body.
“Why are they dreading the police in this State, and why do they seek to thwart the inquiry right away? On October 26, 2022, an FIR was filed, and on October 27, 2022, they knocked the door of this court asking for a CBI investigation. This is a very severe situation, and a probe into the poachgate should be permitted from the standpoint of constitutional morality,” he said. Dave said that on the one hand, they claim to have no connection to the three defendants, while on the other, they are advocating for the three before the High Court.
“It was done in Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, and Maharashtra, where the MLAs of opposition parties are being seduced and encouraged, kept in star hotels, and are bribed to move over to the BJP and then overthrow those governments. Telangana is not the only State where the BJP is doing this. Here, a plot to buy TRS legislators is being developed in order for the BJP to seize control,” he said.
Dave also argued before the court that the BJP at the federal level was employing the services of the ED, I-T department and the CBI to harass MLAs from opposition parties in an effort to get them to defect to the BJP. Jethmalani, who represented the three accused, and Dave, who represented the State, were literally at odds throughout the protracted, long drawn-out hearing, which started at 11.30 am and ended in part by late evening. Justice Reddy interrupted at one point and directed the two senior counsels to refrain from getting into such acrimonious debates, and adjourned the hearing to December 6, 2022.