Chandrababu Vacate Petition Hopping From One Bench to Another

In an unprecedented manner, the case related to CBI's preliminary enquiry (PE) into Telugu Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu's alleged disproportionate assets is getting transferred from one bench of the High Court to another. On Friday, a division bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court transferred the case from itself to another bench after the advocate representing YSR Congress honorary president Y.S. Vijayalakshmi attributed political motives to one of the judges.

Chandrababu Naidu's petition was originally meant to be heard by the Justice Lokur bench and it came up for hearing on Thursday. However, the chief justice recused himself from the case on the ground that he had owned several shares in Reliance Industry Limited, owned by Mukesh Ambani. The CJ pointed out that RIL had impleaded in Naidu's case as Vijayalakshmi accused the company of being a major beneficiary during Naidu's regime. According to her, RIL had invested in the Eenadu Group owned by Ramoji Rao.

On Saturday the division bench comprising Justice V. Eshwaraiah and Justice K.S. Appa Rao, was to hear the petitions filed by Naidu and others in the morning. They were seeking the vacation of the HC's earlier directive, ordering the PE into the assets the TDP chief acquired during his regime as chief minister between 1995 and 2004. However, Vijayalakshmi's counsel Sushil Kumar refused to argue the case. He said he had serious doubts about the credibility of Justice Eshwaraiah's judgments, as his family had connections with the TDP. He alleged that Naidu's manoeuvring had ensured that his petitions were referred to the bench that included Justice Eshwaraiah. He pointed out that the judge had, in the past, delivered several judgments in favour of the TDP.

In spite of the judges trying to convince, Counsel Susheel Kumar didn't relent and the judges announced that the case would be referred to another bench in on the discretion of chief justice M.B. Lokur and posted the hearing for Monday. While some senior political observers point out that it was not proper to attribute political motives to the judges, some expressed doubt whether Babu "cleverly" got the petitions transferred, as alleged by the YSR Congress Party.