Sandur Power Company, against whom TD leader K. Yerrannaidu had filed a petition for a CBI probe in the High Court, had filed a special leave petition. All these petitioners had sought interim stay on the HC order as immediate relief and quashing of the order as main prayer in their SLPs. They alleged that all the HC petitions were “politically motivated” as they were filed by political opponents of late chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, who were also “inimical” to Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy after he inherited the political legacy of his father.

The other ground for challenge was that the petitioners, Mr Yerrannaidu and Congress legislator P. Shankar Rao, who filed the PILs in the HC, could have filed complaints in the magistrate’s court as provided under the Code of Criminal Procedure and the court would have issued the due process only after enough “prima facie” material was brought on record. But HC had ordered the CBI probe straightaway, without examining the evidence to show if any case even for “preliminary enqu-iry” was made out, which is the normal practice with the CBI.