Supreme Court won't interfere with High Court order in Jagan case

In a setback to YSR Congress founder Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, the Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to interfere with the Andhra Pradesh High Court order directing the Central Bureau of Investigation to register a first information report to probe his alleged ill-gotten wealth.

A Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma in a brief order said: “We are not inclined to interfere with the High Court order. However, the question of law raised is left open. The petitioners are permitted to defend themselves in accordance with law.”

Acting on petitions from Minister P. Shankar Rao and others, the High Court directed the CBI to register the FIR and conduct the inquiry into the wealth of the Kadapa MP from 2004 onwards to find out the sources of his income. The special leave petitions by Mr. Reddy and others are directed against this order.

Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani, appearing for Mr. Reddy, said though he had filed an application seeking a copy of the CBI's preliminary report, the High Court failed to furnish it. This in spite of the fact that it perused the contents in court.

It was not possible for the High Court to have compartmentalised the contents of the CBI report and other material, and the only conclusion that “may be drawn is that there was a reasonable likelihood of bias against him based on the contents of the report,” counsel argued.

However, Justice Bhandari pointed out that the High Court clearly said it had not taken the CBI's preliminary report into consideration against the respondents and “have drawn prima facie satisfaction for registration of a case and investigation independently on the basis of material available on record relating to the writ petitions.”

Vendetta, says counsel

Mr. Jethmalani said: “I have a reasonable apprehension that the court was prejudiced and biased in ordering registration of a case.” Quoting earlier decisions, he said courts should not entertain PIL petitions from politicians as they were not a battleground to settle political scores. In this case, it was vendetta at the behest of the Congress Minister.

Senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, who also appeared for Mr. Reddy, said, “The Minister has himself admitted that his petition [in the High Court] was politically motivated at the instance of his party president [Sonia Gandhi].”

Mr. Rohatgi pointed out that if an FIR was registered in the normal course, the petitioner would be entitled to challenge it. But if the High Court were to order registration of the FIR, it meant that the petitioner's rights under Article 21 were violated.

An admitted fact

Senior counsel A.K. Ganguly, appearing for the respondents (petitioners in the High Court), however, argued that the High Court had passed the order not merely on the basis of allegations in the writ petitions but also on an independent report of the amicus curiae. It was an admitted fact that Mr. Reddy had in 2003 declared his assets at Rs.4.79 crore and in 2011at Rs.365 crore and that of his wife at Rs.42 crore. Mr. Reddy must explain how he got this much wealth in eight years.