HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday issued notices to the SIT looking into the leak of Assistant Engineer Examination question papers to file a status report on the investigation done so far, by April 11. Principal Home Secretary, Hyderabad Police Commissioner, DCP Central Zone, TSPSC Secretary, and Additional CP Crimes (SIT) were named respondents.
Stating that NSUI leader and petitioner Balmuri Venkata Narasing Rao had not provided any concrete evidence that the SIT’s investigation was biassed, Justice B Vijaysen Reddy also disallowed a plea for a CBI investigation into the case. He said that the court had not been presented any evidence that the government was attempting to put an end to the case.
The judge said that the court cannot consider the claims made during the press conference held by IT Minister KT Rama Rao on March 18, 2023, that only two defendants – Praveen Kumar, Assistant Section Officer, and Atla Rajashekar, System Analyst – were accountable for the question paper leak and exonerated the TSPSC.
Apart from news reports, the petitioner has not provided any evidence to the court to support his claims in this respect either, Justice Reddy said. Appearing for the petitioner, Supreme Court counsel Vivek Tankha informed the court that Rama Rao gave the TSPSC a clean chit by claiming that only two people were responsible for the question paper leak before the SIT had any concrete evidence of the leak during its investigation. The SIT requested police custody of the defendants only after the writ petition was filed, which amply demonstrates the State government’s desire to keep the entire affair hushed up, Tankha said.
He emphasised that many who passed the recent Group-1 preliminary examination held by the TSPSC are from the Assembly constituency of Rama Rao which raised serious concerns about the involvement of politicians in high positions in the question paper leak. “In criminal law, it is the Investigating Agency that clears an accused after a thorough investigation. However in this case, the TSPSC was cleared by the Minister which raises many questions about the integrity of the investigating agency,” Tankha said.
He requested a directive to the CBI or any other impartial body to investigate the question paper leak due to the potential impact on the future of thousands of applicants who registered for the TSPSC’s competitive examinations. Tankha said that these prospective candidates are looking to the court for justice that would inspire trust in them. Countering this, Advocate-General BS Prasad reminded the court that the TSPSC had cancelled the exams in the interest of the general public and questioned the petitioners about how this had affected them. He requested that the court dismiss the writ petition as unmaintainable in the first instance on the grounds that the petitioner, Narasing Rao, being a member of the Congress and that he lacks jurisdiction to file the Writ petition.
He said it was a politically motivated Writ petition that needs to be dismissed right away. The other two petitioners in this writ case have also applied for various TSPSC positions, and the SIT is working to find out the truth from those responsible for the question paper leak with the help of its cyber unit. In this case, nine people have already been detained, and the SIT has even visited the homes of the other offenders in an effort to get information from them about the leak, the A-G said.