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Nagam Janardhan Reddy v. State of Telangana

Special Leave Petition (Civil) · 2025 INSC 798Decided 21 May 2025
Special Leave Petition (Civil) No.7005 of 2019
Mrs. Justice B.V. Nagarathna · Justice Satish Chandra Sharma

Background

A former six-term MLA and ex-Minister filed a public interest writ petition alleging that officials fraudulently revised the estimated cost of Electro-Mechanical equipment for the Palamuru Ranga Reddy Lift Irrigation Scheme from about Rs. 5,960 crores to about Rs. 8,386 crores, causing a loss of over Rs. 2,426 crores to the public exchequer. He sought a declaration that this revision was fraudulent and a CBI investigation into it. The High Court of Telangana dismissed the writ petition, and the petitioner approached the Supreme Court by special leave.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the first prayer (a declaration that the cost revision was fraudulent) required detailed factual determination that cannot be undertaken in a writ petition under Article 226. On the second prayer (referring the matter to the CBI), the Court found the High Court had already considered and rightly declined to exercise its discretion, and that the Supreme Court could not sit in judgment over that discretionary refusal in an SLP. The Court also noted the petitioner had filed multiple similar PILs over the years on the same project, and that the Central Vigilance Commission had already examined a similar complaint and found it unsubstantiated. The petition was accordingly dismissed.

Lesson Learnt

Courts exercising writ jurisdiction generally will not order a CBI probe or make fraud findings based on disputed facts alone; such claims usually require a proper trial or investigation route, and repeated PILs on settled issues are unlikely to succeed, especially once a body like the CVC has already examined and rejected the underlying complaint.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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