A Special Court in Bengaluru has ordered the registration of a ‘special criminal case’ against former Karnataka chief minister B S Yediyurappa over the alleged corruption in a land denotification issue when he was the deputy CM in the BJP-JDS coalition government in 2006-07.
Sessions Judge B Jayantha Kumar of the special court has issued the order on March 26, based on a private complaint by one Vasudeva Reddy.
The single-judge bench said that there is sufficient material to proceed against Yediyurappa by registering a Special Criminal Case and summoning him to give an opportunity to establish his allegations.
The land was acquired to establish IT park
According to the complainant, the state government under the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Act acquired 434 acres of land in Bellandur, Devarabeesanahalli, Kariyammana Agrahara and Amanibellandur Khane to establish an Information Technology Park. However, the same was denotified by Yeddiyurappa in favour of private persons without any public benefit.
The court in its order said the complainant has made a prima facie case against Yediyurappa, who has to be summoned to the court after due process.
Yediyurappa was the second accused in the original complaint filed by Vasudeva Reddy in 2013 with the then Industries Minister R V Deshpande being the accused number one.
Special Court rejected the ‘B’ Report in 2021
The case against Deshpande was quashed by the High Court in 2015 with Yediyurappa being the sole accused in this case now.
Earlier, the Lokayukta police had filed a ‘B’ report in the case giving a clean chit to Yediyurappa citing that there was no evidence of illegal gratification.
B report means that the police has completed the investigation and there is no offence made out against the accused. However, the Special Court rejected the B Report in 2021.
In its latest order, the court has specified that the lack of evidence of illegal gratification to the accused does not prohibit initiating an investigation under Section 13(1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
