New Delhi, Jul 13 : The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on July 22 the plea of the Andhra Pradesh government against the high court order which stayed Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe in a case related to the irregularities in the land deals to develop the state’s capital Amaravati during the previous Telugu Desam Party (TDP) regime back in 2015.
The apex court bench comprising Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari disagreed with the state government’s request seeking the matter to be remanded back to the HC citing the probe has been affected badly.
Rajeev Dhavan, appearing on behalf of the AP government, stated that the government has accepted most of the conditions in the writ petition filed before the high court by the state’s former advocate general Dammalapati Srinivas such as, it is ready for a court-monitored probe and no coercive action will be taken till the pendency of the plea.
Srinivas’s counsel Harish Salve said his submission was that the appeal filed by the state government be dismissed and matter be remanded back to the high court.
He said that if the court goes through the papers and the FIR filed in the matter, it will quash the investigation.
“The Supreme Court has never stopped an investigation before. This petition is a vengeance petition of a lost election,” Dhavan said.
The top court will hear the matter further on July 22.
The FIR pertains to the alleged role played by former Advocate General Dammlapati Srinivas and 12 others in purchasing land in Amravati – the proposed state capital – at a throwaway price.
Action, in this case, began on March 23, 2020, when the state government wrote to the Centre seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into alleged irregularities in the allotment of land at Amravati.
This was based on findings of a Cabinet sub-committee in December 2019.
A special investigation team was constituted in February 2020 which got stayed by the High Court.
UNI
