The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed two sets of petitions by Lok Sabha MP Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy against the Andhra Pradesh high court order for registering FIR by the CBI against him for acquiring disproportionate assets through alleged corrupt means during the chief ministership of his late father Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.
After two-hour long intense arguments by counsel for Mr Reddy and AP minister P. Shankar Rao who took the matter initially to the HC, a bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma dismissed his petitions, saying there was no reason for any “interference” at this stage.
This was for the second time within a month that the apex court rejected his petitions against the CBI probe into his alleged huge assets at the threshold when his counsel mentioned them. Earlier, on July 22 the same bench had rejected his three sets of petition against HC’s order for “preliminary” inquiry by the CBI.
“In peculiar circumstances of this case we are not inclined to interfere... the petitions are dismissed,” the bench in its one paragraph order said.
As Mr Reddy’s counsel Ram Jethmalani and Mukul Rohtagi insisted that at least some protection should be provided to their clients, which included Mr Reddy’s several companies, the bench added one more line in the order that “the petitioners would be permitted to defend themselves in accordance with the law.”
During the hearing, which mainly revolved around whether the HC’s division bench had actually perused the “preliminary report” of CBI against Mr Redyy, the bench said “the available material on record was so much (for the HC to pass the order)”.
The focus of arguments by his counsel was the July 22 order of the apex court.