The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to grant a stay or order a status quo on the judgement of the Telangana high court handing over the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the case pertaining to alleged attempt to poach four Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLAs into the Bharatiya Janata Party, people familiar with the matter said.
A division bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud also refused to take up the special leave petition of Telangana government, challenging the high court judgement. The bench posted the case to February 17 for hearing.
On Wednesday morning, senior advocate Siddharth Luthra made a special mention of the case before the CJI and requested for a stay on the high court judgement or an order of status quo.
He said that the CBI had already been bringing pressure on the state police to hand over the files pertaining to the investigation into alleged MLAs’ poaching case and had written letters to the state chief secretary twice.
“Once the investigation files are handed over to the CBI, the case would get diluted. Hence, the government is asking for a status quo or a stay on the high court judgement,” Luthra said. Justice Chandrachud, however, rejected the state government’s plea and refused to grant a stay on the high court judgement. He also turned down the request to take up the petition at the earliest.
“We shall take up the hearing on February 17 and examine all the issues. If there is any merit in the argument of the state government, we shall direct the CBI to return the files to the state police,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Telangana high court, too, refused to entertain the state government’s request for keeping the judgement in abeyance for two weeks and directing the single judge bench to take up the review petition.
Responding to the request put forth by state advocate general B S Prasad, high court chief justice Ujjal Bhuyan said the single-judge bench should not review the judgement given by the division bench and the government would have to seek the remedy only from the Supreme Court.
“Since the judgement has already been challenged in the Supreme Court, the government would have to wait for its decision,” justice Bhuyan said.
