Leave it to my conscience: CM

Hyderabad, Oct 13 (UNI) Maintaining that he had not been indicted by the Supreme Court in the Gouru Venkat Reddy clemency case, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekara Reddy today wanted to leave to his conscience whether he was right in recommending pardon for the convict.

Talking to mediapersons Chief Minister said leave this question to his conscience. Now the question was only whether the Supreme Court had indicted him or not, he added.

He said, he had never done anything wrong knowingly.

While rejecting the demand by TDP President N Chandrababu Naidu for his resignation, he said Mr Naidu should realise that two persons among his cabinet colleagues were still languishing in jails.

He said the court had refused to name him as a respondent in the case of granting pardon to Venkat Reddy (Husband of Congress Legislator Gouru Charita Reddy).

Recalling that the previous TDP Government had withdrawn many cases against former TDP MLAS and others, he alleged Mr Naidu had used his 'political clout' with the BJP-led NDA to scuttle a court-directed CBI probe into the bomb blast in the house of former TDP minister K Sivaprasada Rao, the cases against whom had been withdrawn by the Naidu government.

Asked whether it was not the responsiblity of the government to look into the reports of the officials concerned in the case of Mr Venkat Reddy thoroughly before sending it to the Governor, he said everyday they used to get over 500 files. Practically it would not be possible to read all the files word by word, he added.

In this context, he expressed his inability to read the Supreme Court's judgement copy completely for paucity of time.

The government would thorougly weigh the pros and cons while granting clemency to prisoners under similar circumstances, he said.

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