Editor's Pick: Regime revenge by Jagan, or battle for survival?

(The Editor's Pick is a new newsletter from The Hindu that provides a snapshot of the most important stories from today's edition of our newspaper, along with a note from our top editors on why we chose to give prominence to these stories.)

The Supreme Court has lifted a ban ordered by the Andhra Pradesh High Court on media reporting on an FIR in the Amaravati land scam. The apex court ruling came on an appeal by the Andhra Pradesh government against the High Court verdict, which had also stopped further probes on the FIR.

In the FIR, the Andhra Pradesh government had accused Dammalapati Srinivas, who was State Additional Advocate General in the previous Telugu Desam Party regime, of misusing his position to facilitate land purchases in Amaravati. The development of Amaravati as the new State capital had been a grand project of the TDP government of Chandrababu Naidu. The subsequent YSRCP government under Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy had watered down the capital project and raised allegations of corruption over land deals in Amaravati. The FIR registered on September 15 had named Mr. Srinivas, along with relatives of a sitting Supreme Court judge as having benefited from these land deals. Within hours of the FIR filing, the High Court had acted on a plea by Mr. Srinivas to block further probes and issued the gag order.

In the Supreme Court hearing yesterday, lawyers for Mr. Srinivas had alleged that this FIR was a form of "regime revenge" by Chief Minister Mr. Reddy against the previous dispensation. However, this legal fight in the land scam has come up while the issue of Mr. Reddy's allegations against Supreme Court Justice N.V. Ramana is still hot. In a letter to the Chief Justice of India, Mr. Reddy had alleged that Justice Ramana influences the Andhra Pradesh High Court to favour the TDP. The timing of the letter is being seen as suspect as it had come soon after an order by Justice Ramana restarted hearing in a case against Mr. Reddy over disproportionate assets.

The Supreme Court's lifting of the gag order adds a new layer to a politico-legal battle that the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister seems to be waging, partly on the offensive and partly on the defensive. This is what makes the story important.