The Telangana High Court has placed under suspension a special sessions judge in connection with a “direction” given by him to police for registering an FIR against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar and several others.
“Based on a private complaint filed under Section 200 of the CrPC by Raghavendra Raju, the judicial officer acted in undue haste without conducting any preliminary inquiry and without recording the statement of the complainant,” the high court said, PTI reported.
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The action was initiated on the administrative side against K Jaya Kumar, the judge of the special sessions court for trial of MPs/MLAs, after a complaint was lodged with the high court by an official of the Election Commission of India (ECI), official sources said on Wednesday.
An FIR was registered on August 11 against Telangana Excise Minister V Srinivas Goud, CEC Rajiv Kumar and a host of other officials after being referred by the sessions court for allegedly “tampering” Goud’s 2018 state Assembly election affidavit.
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The matter was referred to the police by the court on a private complaint made by a resident of Mahabubnagar who alleged that Goud, MLA from Mahabubnagar, had “tampered” with the election affidavit by suppressing facts.
While Goud was named as the first accused, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and several other officials were made co-accused, who the complainant alleged had colluded with the minister and closed the election affidavit without taking any further action.
(With inputs from PTI)