High Court hears KCR, Harish Rao’s plea on Medigadda case
The court adjourned the hearing to Monday.
Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Friday viewed that the private complaint filed against K. Chandrashekar Rao and T. Harish Rao, in relation to the sinking of Medigadda piers, will become infructuous, as the defacto complainant Nagavelli Rajalinga Murthy has passed away.
Justice K. Lakshman said that the court came to know about the death by murder of Murthy through media reports. Hence the private complaint filed by him before the Bhupalpally district court automatically becomes redundant following his death, the judge opined.
He also pointed out that the private complaint was at the admission stage and, as such, no FIR has been registered.
Public prosecutor Palle Nageshwar Rao differed with the court’s contention and argued that the death of the complainant was immaterial as the complaint can still be proceeded with. Further, he requested the court to keep the adjudication of the private complaint alive only for the purpose of investigation, contending that the investigation should continue so that the culprits can be punished.
He referred to judgments rendered by the Supreme Court and the Karnataka High Court, which had made it clear that private complaints can be heard, despite the complainant’s demise and sought a week’s time to place such judgments before the court.
When counsel for the deceased tried to convince the court on the issue, the latter wanted to know who were giving instructions after Murthy’s death.
After hearing the contention of the public prosecutor, Justice Lakshman said that the court was not going into the merits of the case, since the complainant was no more, and adjourned the criminal petition filed by the two BRS leaders to February 24, for the purpose of placing judgments by the public prosecutor.
The judge was dealing with the criminal petition filed by the two leaders, challenging the summons issued by Bhupalpally district court in a private complainant filed by Murthy, seeking criminal action against Chandrashekar Rao and Harish Rao for involvement in large-scale misappropriation of government funds by constructing the Medigadda barrage, without any expert’s approval and permissions.
The de facto complainant was murdered two days back.
