The Andhra Pradesh Transport Department has given a clean chit to Diwakar Travels, after an accident in February this year, where a bus fell into a culvert near Vijayawada and resulted in the death of 11 people.
The travel company is owned by the family of TDP MP JC Diwakar Reddy.
The Times of India reported that an advocate, K V Subba Reddy, had filed a PIL earlier, after which the High Court had asked for a response from the prinicipal secretaries of the transport and labour departments.
Following this, the principal secretary of the transport department filed an affidavit, which gave a clean chit to the bus and the travel company, and said that all provisions of the Motor Transport Workers Act, 1961, were also met, TOI reported.
The secretary also claimed that there were two drivers on board the bus, and the vehicle had been in operation for the last one year and met all safety standards.
The bus fell into a culvert on the Hyderabad-Vijayawada highway on February 28, in the early hours of the morning. The driver, Adinarayan Reddy, was among those who died.
The injured passengers were stuck for over four hours, even as rescue teams struggled to remove the bodies, crushed between the seats of the bus.
Following the accident, the police did not file a case against Diwakar Travels, but rather booked the dead driver for the accident.
Anantapur MP Diwakar Reddy, whose family owns the travels, was also recently in the news for misbehaving with IndiGo staff and creating a ruckus at the Visakhapatnam airport.
The MP had arrived late for his flight, and the airlines had initially refused to issue a boarding pass.
CCTV footage showed the lawmaker damage a printer, and push an IndoGo staffer around. Despite all this, the MP boarded the same flight to travel to Hyderabad.
Following this, most domestic airlines banned the MP from travelling with them.
However, he has since left for France, on a vacation with his family.