sc-to-hear-kcr-s-plea-on-power-sector-irregularities

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on July 15 a plea of Bharat Rashtra Samithi supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao challenging a Telangana High Court order dismissing his plea to declare as “illegal” the constitution of a commission to inquire into the alleged irregularities in the power sector during his tenure as the state’s chief minister.

 

The plea is listed to be heard by a bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.

 

In his petition, Rao has sought to declare as “illegal” the Telangana government’s order constituting the Commission of Inquiry to conduct a judicial inquiry into the correctness and propriety of the decisions taken by his government on procurement of power from Chhattisgarh by Telangana power distribution companies and construction of the Bhadradri Thermal Power Plant at Manuguru and the Yadadri Thermal Plant at Damarcherla by TSGENCO.

 

TSGENCO is the abbreviation of the Telangana State Power Generation Corporation Limited.

 

The BRS led by K Chandrasekhar Rao, popularly known as KCR, lost the 2023 Telangana assembly to the Congress.

 

In his plea against the July 1 high court order, he has alleged bias and also sought the continuation of Justice (retd) L Narasimha Reddy as the head of the commission to be declared as “illegal”.

 

The high court in its 22-page order said the material produced before the court by Rao does not contain any material so as to indicate that the “respondent No. 3 (Reddy)” has pre-judged the issues pending before him.

 

The commission is required to record the findings on the basis of material produced before it, it had said. The high court had said it cannot also lose sight of the fact that the respondent held the constitutional office of chief justice and has worked as a constitutional functionary.

 

“The allegation of bias against the respondent No. 3 is solely based on the statement reportedly made in a press conference and no other material has been produced to show that the proceeding before the respondent No.3 is vitiated on account of personal bias,” it had said.