Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh Prime Minister Jaganmohan Reddy ongoing confrontation with the state judiciary took a dramatic turn on Saturday night when he brought serious charges against Supreme Court Justice NV Ramana, the judge who will become the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India (CJI), as well as against the Chief Justice and several other Andhra judges. Supreme Court.
Reddy detailed his allegations in a letter to CJI SA Bobde, perhaps the first time in the history of the republic that a prime minister has formally accused members of the higher judiciary of political bias and even corruption.
The move comes days after Reddy met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Oct. 6 and Union Interior Minister Amit Shah a few days earlier.
At a press conference here on October 10, the Prime Minister’s Senior Adviser Ajeya Kallam distributed copies of Jagan Reddy’s letter, dated October 6, 2020, and also read a note in which the Prime Minister alleged that Judge Ramana had used his influence. with the former Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government led by N. Chandra Babu Naidu in the state to favor his daughters.
Given that this specific accusation is contained in the FIR that was registered last month on the issue of the Amaravati land adjudication and that the AP high court has exempted the media from reporting, The wire refrains from providing details of the charges. In another order, the high court also suspended a report submitted by the Reddy government’s cabinet subcommittee on various acts of commission and omission by the former TDP government.
According to Kallam, Reddy also said that Judge Ramana has played a crucial role in influencing judicial appointments in state courts, which Reddy believes was done to change decisions in favor of TDP leaders facing multiple corruption charges. He claimed that his government has established through an investigation that former Prime Minister Naidu and many others associated with his party had accumulated “enormous wealth” by “illegal means”.
Kallam quoted Reddy as saying that Judge Ramana and his “cohorts” had allegedly acted against his government. In addition, he accused the Supreme Court judge of having a close relationship with the former chief minister of the TDP. “I make this statement with the utmost responsibility. I can only inform you that a former judge of the honorable Supreme Court, Justice Chelameswar, recorded this fact with EVIDENCE, ”said Reddy’s note, while highlighting the alleged proximity of Justice Ramana to Naidu.
The evidence that the prime minister referred to is the fact that the opinion that Judge Ramana expressed in a letter to the CJI in 2017 on the suitability of certain judges for the AP high court was identical to what Naidu had also written. about them as prime minister.
Kallam, who served as chief secretary during the Naidu government, told reporters that “the government saw fit to speak out to ensure that the dignity of all state institutions is preserved.” After reading the statement, he ended his interaction with the media without answering any questions from the media. Initially, there was talk that the chief minister himself held the meeting with the media, but the job at the last minute was entrusted to Kallam.
In his letter to Chief Justice Bobde, Jagan Reddy cited examples of how Naidu was allegedly screwing up investigations and running by using his “cohorts” in the state judiciary. Reddy’s note alleged that Judge Ramana helped the Naidu regime select six out of an eleven-member panel of the high court bar and promoted them as acting judges.
“Sri Justice NV Ramana has been influencing the High Court sessions, including the list of some honorable judges and examples of how matters important to the Telugu Desam Party have been assigned to a few honorable judges …” the note said from the Chief Minister, adding that he has attached documents showing the “nexus” between Judge Ramana, the TDP and some judges of the higher court.
“With a sense of pain and anguish at the politicization of the institutions personally supervised by Sri N. Chandrababu Naidu through honorable Supreme Court justices, the facts would clearly demonstrate that the august institution of the Supreme Court is being used to destabilize and democratically overthrow the elected government of the AP State with an indelible trace dating back to the overt and covert actions of Sri N. Chandrababu Naidu through the Honorable Sri Justice NV Ramana, ”Reddy said in his letter.
The ‘press release’ issued by Reddy made further accusations:
- “Since the new government undertook the investigation into the actions of Sri N. Chandrababu Naidu in his regime between 2014-2019, it is now clear that Sri Justice NV Ramana, began to influence the course of the administration of justice in the State, through Chief Justice Sri Jitendra Kumar Maheswari “.
- “List for the Honorable Judges Session, whereby important matters of policy and protection of the interests of Chandrababu Naidu were published before a few honorable judges: Judge AV Sesha Sai, Judge M. Satyanarayana Murthy, Judge DVSS Somayyajulu , Judge D. Ramesh “.
The Superior Court has passed nearly 100 orders denying a number of key decisions by the Jaganmohan Reddy government in the last 18 months of his tenure. The decisions suspended by the High Court include the decentralization of the administration by moving capital out of Amaravati, the abolition of the Legislative Council of AP and the dismissal of the State Electoral Commission of AP N. Ramesh Kumar. “The government decided to demolish the invasions in the river bed to safeguard the ecology of the river, but the process was suspended by the court,” said the press release.
Cases against Jagan
The opposition TDP says Jaganmohan Reddy, who took over as chief minister on May 30, 2019, has decided to confront the judiciary head-on in light of his own cases that are expected to come up at the final hearing in brief. The former vice chairman of the TDP state planning board, C. Kutumbha, in a televised discussion, accused Reddy of playing the martyr by blaming opposition parties and the judiciary for his own “sins.”
The TDP said that the head of the YSR Congress is doing everything possible to avoid his imminent arrest in the cases pending trial in the special courts of CBI and ED. In the process, Reddy is trying to thwart the prospects of Ramana becoming CJI by dragging him and his relatives into “fictitious” land scams in Amaravati, the party charged.
Following the Supreme Court’s order to the chief judges of the superior courts to adjudicate more than 4,000 pending criminal cases against sitting and former legislators, the Telangana superior court ordered the CBI special court to handle asset cases. disproportionate to Jagan to complete his work as soon as possible. Reddy was charged as the lead defendant in several cases involving assets disproportionate to their known sources of income and money laundering by the CBI and the Directorate of Enforcement.
In 2012, the CBI brought charges against Reddy, accusing him of accumulating more than Rs 1 lakh crore of wealth by abusing the office of his late father, YS Rajasekhara Reddy, who was then the undivided AP CM.
Reddy was arrested in May 2012 and released on bail 16 months later. Jagan fought in two general elections in 2014 and 2019 when he was out on bail.
Andhra Pradesh Congressional Committee (APCC) legal cell spokesman V. Gurnadham said the way the Reddy government is heading towards a collision with the courts and the judiciary is unprecedented in the history of Andhra Pradesh.
The full text of Prime Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy’s letter to Chief Justice of India SA Bobde is attached below:
Andhra CM Jagan Mohan Reddy … by The Wire
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