Supreme Court Dismisses Nagam’s Petition on Palamuru-Rangareddy Project

The Supreme Court bench headed by Justice B.V. Nagarathna and comprising Justice Satish Chandra Sharma after an elaborate hearing on Wednesday dismissed the SLP recording that there are no merits in the case to interfere with the Order of the High Court of Telangana which had earlier dismissed the Public Interest Litigation filed by Dr. Nagam Janardhan Reddy vide Order dated 03.12.2018.

The Supreme Court bench observed that four other cases filed by Dr. Nagam relating to the very same project before the High Court have been either dismissed or disposed and have attained finality as no appeals are pending. It also recorded that the Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC), while dealing with the complaint filed by very same Nagam on this issue, had given a clear finding that the allegations are unsubstantiated.

The bench questioned the senior counsel Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for the petitioner Dr. Nagam, as to how a prayer can be sought before the High Court in a Writ Petition to declare the revision of rates as fraudulent. Responding to this, Mr. Bhushan urged the bench to ignore that part of the prayer and focus on the second part which was seeking a direction to the Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate the alleged fraud. Justice Nagarathna stated that any revision of rates or ratios could have been exercising of commercial wisdom by the State and wondered how can the courts give a direction to the CBI to investigate. She said courts cannot be a monitor for every action of the State.

Senior counsel and former Attorney General, Mr. Mukul Rohtagi, appearing for Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Ltd (MEIL), in his submissions raised objections about the maintainability of the SLP itself. He informed the court that the very same petitioner Dr. Nagam has been filing one after another cases for the last 10 years before the High Court, CVC etc against them as a form of harassment. He drew the attention of the court to the finding given by the CVC on the complaint made by Dr. Nagam.

After hearing submissions on both sides in detail, the Supreme Court bench pronounced it’s order dismissing the SLP. It noted that it is the discretion of the High Court in granting the prayers of the petitioners, and the High Court has recorded reasons for not exercising its discretion for directing the CBI to investigate into this matter. “We find that the High Court was justified in declining to refer the case to CBI”, asserted the Supreme Court and went on dismiss the SLP as devoid of merits.