Telangana High Court on Monday directed the HC Registry to pass on a copy of objections raised by it to former Minister and Member of Parliament Chegondi Venkata Harirama Jogaiah over his PIL petition seeking a direction to CBI special court to expedite trial of cases against Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy.
Before passing the direction, Chief Justice of the HC Ujjal Bhuyan sought to know from the petitioner’s counsel what public interest was involved in the petition. The CJ along with Justice N. Tukaramji was hearing the petition which was placed before the bench by the Registry observing the petition filed by Mr. Jogaiah cannot fit into the parameters of a PIL petition.
The bench noted that content of petition suggested that it was aimed at settling political scores rather than raising issues connected to people. The bench said there was no point in attempting to waste precious time of the courts by filing such petitions with politically motivated objectives.
The CJ asked if the petitioner approached the CBI Director or filed any petition in CBI court seeking speedy trial of the cases registered by Enforcement Directorate and CBI against Mr. Reddy who is presently Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. It was not fair to approach the HC in the guise of PIL petition instead of approaching the right agencies or persons, the bench said.
Of late such ‘public nuisance’ petitions were going up and some persons made it a habit to approach courts with such petitions on flimsy grounds. The CJ made it clear to the petitioner that the HC cannot immediately take up hearing of the PIL plea just because the petitioner wanted a direction.
Mr. Jogaiah filed the PIL petition (which is yet to be numbered and over which the Registry raised objections) giving details of the cases registered by ED and CBI against Mr. Reddy who was then a Lok Sabha member. Mr. Jogaiah stated in his petition that “the general public of the State of Andhra Pradesh thought that the courts are also very lenient” towards Mr. Reddy against whom several cases were pending since 2017.
