SC rejects plea against panel reviewing SIT report on Tirumala laddu row

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea of Subramanian Swamy challenging the Andhra Pradesh government's decision to appoint a one-member committee to review the Special Investigation Team (SIT) report on the Tirumala laddu controversy.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymala Bagchi was hearing Swamy's plea, which also assailed statements made by the Andhra Pradesh chief minister on the row.

CJI Kant said, "Such an administrative enquiry cannot be called as overlapping with the criminal proceedings which led to the chargesheet and supplementary chargesheet."  "There is no conflict of interest/overlapping, and the scope of the investigation/enquiry, having been well demarcated, shows that apprehension of the petitioner does not have a solid foundation. Let both processes continue strictly in accordance with the law," the court said.

 

Swamy argued that the state government's move undermines the authority of the SIT, which was constituted earlier by the Supreme Court itself to probe irregularities surrounding the laddus distributed by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD).