'HC's order perfectly fine': SC rejects plea opposing quashing of SC/ST Act case against CM Reddy

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider a plea against the Telangana High Court's order quashing a 2016 FIR against Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy under sections of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the IPC.

A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi said that the political battles should not be fought in courts.

Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra on behalf of the Chief Minister described petitioner N Peddi Raju as an adventurous litigant. 

The court, however, pointed out the high court "minutely considered the facts of the case and found that no prima facie case is made out against respondent number 2 (Revanth Reddy)."

The court said that it was not giving a clean chit to the Chief Minister, but the high court's views seemed to be “perfectly fine” and more plausible in facts and circumstances of the case. 

Luthra said earlier he had made allegations against the high court judge in the case. The high court in July, last year, had quashed the FIR against the Chief Minister.

The court had earlier taken a very strong note of the scandalous and scurrilous allegations made against the high court judge who had passed the order in favour of the Chief Minister.

The bench, however, had closed the contempt proceedings against Raju and two lawyers, after cautioning them that such conduct undermined the integrity of the judicial system and must be "strongly deprecated". It had also noted the Telangana High Court judge accepted the apologies tendered by the errant litigant and his two lawyers.

The case was registered in 2016 at the Gachibowli police station on a complaint on behalf of SC Mutually Aided Cooperative Housing Society Limited, alleging that at Revanth Reddy's instigation, his brother Kondal Reddy and others trespassed on the Society's land in Gopanpally village and demolished two rooms using an earth-moving machine, intending to occupy the land. The complainant also alleged they made "casteist remarks" against him. Reddy approached the high court in 2020 for quashing the case.