Telangana High Court on Wednesday expressed dissatisfaction over the release of a PIL petition to the press personnel even before it was heard by the HC.
The plea was filed by Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president and Malkajgiri MP A. Revanth Reddy seeking a direction for probe by a special agency into the case of raid on a pub in Raddison Blue Plaza hotel. While five packets of cocaine were found on the pub premises, 148 persons partying there till 3 a.m. were detained only to be let off after questioning.
The MP stated that local police would not be able to probe the matter as the detained persons hailed from influential families. When the petition came up for hearing on Wednesday, the bench comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili sought to know from the petitioner’s counsel B. Rachna Reddy how the press accessed the PIL petition details even before the bench began adjudication.
The bench took objection to the petitioner’s counsel giving access to the PIL related papers to the press even before the HC began hearing it. Ms. Rachna Reddy told the bench that press personnel would be regularly contacting the HC Registry for information indicating that they would have accessed from there. Unconvinced by the lawyer’s reply, the bench initially declined to hear the plea but eventually heard her contentions only to adjourn the matter to August 24.
The bench instructed the petitioner to file copy of the First Information Report issued by the Banjara Hills police in the case of raid on the pub. The FIR filed along with the PIL petition was not the one connected to the case in hand.
The petitioner’s counsel contended that only two or three persons out of the 148 detained at the pub were subjected to tests. Even the case was registered against the pub operators and not those who were detained, she said. Special Government Pleader Sanjeev Kumar said the petitioner in 2017 filed a PIL plea with near similar contentions.
