Telangana MLA Poaching Case: Supreme Court orally asks CBI not to probe case for now; lists case for hearing in July

The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to refrain from investigating the ongoing Bharat Rashtra Samithi (formerly Telangana Rashtra Samithi) MLA poaching case during pendency of the appeal against the Telangana High Court order. (Assistant Commissioner of Police vs Bharatiya Janata Party and ors).A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and MM Sundresh ordered status quo and agreed to hear the petition challenging an order of the Telangana high which transferred the probe from the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to the CBI in July."We will order status quo. Do not proceed with (CBI) probe," the bench orally said..A single-judge of the High Court had in December last year transferred the case to the CBI while noting that the accused persons were condemned publicly and branded as conspirators by none other than the Chief Minister (CM) of the State and these incidents called into question the fairness of the probe conducted by the SIT. This decision was appealed before a division bench and was dismissed in February. .The case stems from allegations that the ruling BRS MLAs were approached to defect to the BJP.A first information report (FIR) was lodged for criminal conspiracy and other provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as well as under Section 8 of the Prevention of Corruption Act..It was alleged that on September 6 two out of the three accused persons (Ramachandra Bharati @ Satish Sharma and Nanda Kumar) had met the informant and negotiated with him not to contest as a candidate from the BRS party. Instead, he was asked to resign from BRS and join BJP..The informant further stated that in connection with the same, he was offered an amount of ₹100 crores besides certain contract works of the Central government and was even threatened with dire consequences if he refused..The BJP, however, contended that the entire episode was stage managed with the sole objective of defaming it.Against this backdrop, it moved the High Court contending that the case registered with the Moinabad Police Station should be entrusted to the CBI or an SIT for a free and fair investigation.A probe by SIT was already underway by then..In November, the High Court had after noting that an SIT had already been formed, proceeded to pass directions to ensure that the probe was independent.The subsequent December 26 order dissolved the SIT and transferred the case to CBI..[Read our live-coverage of the hearing below].[Read order]