HYDERABAD: The counsel for principal secretary (home) P Gautam Kumar on Friday refused to tender an apology in the presence of advocate-general A Sudarshan Reddy as told by the Central Administration Tribunal for providing false information to the High Court in connection with the appointment of V Dinesh Reddy as the director- general of police. The CAT posted the hearing on the petition to March 13.Two days ago CAT had threatened defamation against P Gautam Kumar, a 1975-batch IPS officer, for providing false information to the High Court.Refusing to tender an apology, Gautam Kumar's counsel Jonnalagadda Sudhir said, “The affidavit was prepared by me. The feelings of the petitioner were brought before this court on earlier occasions. He filed petitions against the selection for the DGP post and nothing has happened. In fact, there is nothing that is wrong in the affidavit. If there is something wrong, I will take the responsibility.Everything is happening except hearing of the OA. There is no animus and there is no recklessness in preparing the affidavit. Give it a quiet end in the interest of the things,'' Gautam’s counsel said.“There are no mala fide intentions and nothing was said about individual member or about the tribunal.The counsel and the applicant are claiming the DGP post. Hence none could be aggrieved with the affidavit.There is no specific mention about the tribunal in the affidavit before High Court.Each of the sentences conveys different meaning.What is written cannot be understood in that manner.The tribunal is unnecessarily sensitising the issue,'' he said.At this stage, a tribunal member (justice) intervened and wanted to know if the counsel was filing any affidavit expressing apologies.Gautam Kumar's counsel said, “No..I am not begging. I will not. I have finalised the affidavit. I will not ask my client to tender unconditional apology. Further, he is not in the country. I cannot ask him to tender apology. If it is done, that would be condemning myself.” Meanwhile, advocate-general Sudarshan Reddy sought two weeks’ time to respond on the matter stating that he needed to review Gautam Kumar’s averments. Gautam’s counsel asked CAT to hear the main OA (original application) in the meantime.The tribunal, however, asked as to how the main OA would be heard without disposing the ongoing case.
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