The Kiran Kumar Reddy government, which has sought a legal opinion on the notices served by the Supreme Court on six ministers and eight IAS officers in Jagan's disproportionate case on March 12, decided not to argue their cases as it amounts to the present government endorsing the YSR's decisions. Instead, the government asked the ministers and IAS officers to argue their cases individually and give an explanation to the Supreme Court as to why they had to issue the orders in favour of companies that had invested in Jagan's business.
On Friday, all the six ministers -- Kanna Lakshminarayana, Mopidevi Venkata Ramana, Sabita Indra Reddy, Ponnala Lakshmaiah, J Geetha Reddy and Dharmana Prasada Rao -- who held key portfolios in the YSR government and were part of the decisions taken by his cabinet, besides eight IAS officers -- C V S K Sarma, S V Prasad, Y Srilakshmi, B Sam Bob, K Ratna Prabha, Adityanath Das, P Samuel and Dr Manmohan Singh, indicated to the Supreme Court that they had engaged their individual lawyers to argue their case.
As per the Supreme Court order, the ministers and bureaucrats have to submit their explanation to the notices before April 30. The case is expected to come up for hearing in the Supreme Court next week.
The lawyers would be working under the guidance of senior Supreme Court advocate Harish Salve. "The legal expenses of the ministers and bureaucrats will, however, be borne by the government," sources in the State Secretariat said.
On March 12, the Supreme Court, which admitted a special leave petition filed by a Nellore-based advocate P Sudhakar Reddy, sought to know why it should not order a probe by CBI into the role of these six ministers and eight IAS officers in the issuance of 26 controversial GOs, favouring several companies that had invested in the business empire of Jaganmohan Reddy during the YSR regime between 2004 and 2009.
The petitioner contended that the ministers and IAS officers should also be held responsible for all the decisions taken by YSR as they were also signatories to the note files and government orders favouring various companies that had invested in Jagan's firms as quid pro quo gesture. He pointed out that the CBI had not proceeded against them despite having sufficient evidence that they had helped Jaganmohan Reddy in accumulating illegal assets.
While the six ministers who still continue in the Kiran Kumar Reddy government holding different portfolios accepted the government's order to argue their cases, the bureaucrats have taken the matter seriously. The six IAS officers wrote to Chief Secretary Pankaj Dwivedi a couple of days ago seeking to know why they should have to undergo the scrutiny of the Supreme Court for the decisions taken by the government. "We had not issued the GOs in our individual capacity, but as part of the decisions taken by the government and the cabinet. We only discharged our duties and issued orders after following necessary procedures as per the cabinet decisions," they argued.
They asked the government to either defend the GOs issued to benefit certain companies or keep them in suspension till the CBI investigation is completed. "A criminal investigation on such a GO would be a mockery of justice if the operation of that order runs parallel to the criminal investigation," the six IAS officers said in their letter
from India today
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