Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Thursday extended till December 30, the stay on the notices issued by the Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing the case of alleged attempt to poach ruling BRS MLAs, to senior BJP leader B L Santhosh and others.
The court which had on December 13 extended the order staying the notices issued by SIT under section 41A of CrPC to BJP National General Secretary (Organisation) Santhosh and three others till today adjourned the matter to December 30.
The SIT had issued notices to Santhosh and others to appear before it for questioning on November 21. However, they did not. So, based on the court direction, the SIT again summoned Santhosh to appear before it either on November 26 or 28.
A special court of Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) here on December 6 had rejected the plea of the SIT, to name Santhosh and three others as accused in the case. The state government then moved the High Court challenging it. Orders in the matter have been reserved.
Three people -- Ramachandra Bharati alias Satish Sharma, Nandu Kumar and Simhayaji Swamy, were already named as accused (A1 to A3) in the case after a complaint was lodged by BRS MLA Pilot Rohith Reddy, among four legislators, against them on October 26. The trio was subsequently arrested. Recently, they were granted bail by the High Court.
As per the FIR copy, Rohith Reddy alleged that the accused offered him Rs 100 crore and in return the legislator has to leave the TRS, now BRS, and contest as a BJP candidate in the next Assembly poll. They had allegedly asked Reddy to bring more BRS MLAs by offering Rs 50 crore each to join the BJP. The Telangana government on November 9 ordered the setting up of a seven-member SIT to probe into the alleged attempt to poach the MLAs.
