Hyderabad, April 8 (IANS) The Telangana High Court on Wednesday adjourned to April 22 the pronouncement of its verdict on the batch of writ petitions filed separately by former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and three others seeking a direction to set aside and quash the report of the Justice P.C. Ghose Commission which enquired into alleged irregularities in the execution of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme.

Former Chief Minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) President, K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), former Minister T. Harish Rao, retired IAS officer and former Chief Secretary S.K. Joshi and serving IAS officer Smitha Sabharwal had filed the petitions challenging the report.

After hearing the arguments on the petitions, a Bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G.M. Mohiuddin had last month reserved its orders. The orders were to be pronounced on Wednesday.

The orders were reportedly not ready, leading to the adjournment till April 22.

The Bench extended the order not to initiate any coercive action against all four petitioners based on the findings of the Ghose Commission report.

Supreme Court senior counsel Dama Sheshadri Naidu had argued for KCR while Advocate General A. Sudershan Reddy and senior counsel S. Niranjan Reddy had appeared for the State government and the Ghose Commission respectively,

The Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS), said to be the world’s largest multi-stage lift irrigation project, was started by the then BRS government in May 2016. Its main component was inaugurated by the then CM KCR in 2019.

In March 2024, the Congress government constituted a commission headed by former Supreme Court judge Pinaki Chandra Ghose to probe the alleged irregularities in planning, design, construction, quality control, operation and maintenance of Medigadda, Annaram, and Sundilla Barrages of the Kaleshwaram project.

The commission submitted its report to the Telangana government on July 31, 2025.

The Commission held KCR directly and vicariously accountable for irregularities in planning, execution, completion, operation and maintenance of the Kaleshwaram project. It also indicted Harish Rao, then Chief Secretary Joshi and then Secretary to Chief Minister Smitha Sabharwal.

During the hearing in the High Court on the petitions challenging the report, the counsels for the four petitioners rebutted the findings of the Commission and contended that their clients were not served the mandatory notices under Section 8B and 8C of the Enquiry of Commissions Act.

–IANS

ms/rad