Graft case against ex-Karnataka CM Yediyurappa: SC to hear pleas on Feb 28

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The Supreme Court on Friday set February 28 to hear pleas in corruption cases against former Karnataka chief minister B S Yediyurappa accused of de-notifying land to benefit private parties. A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said it needed to adjudicate the legal question whether a second complaint should be lodged against a former public servant for commission of alleged offence while in office even after the dismissal of the first complaint for lack of prosecution sanction.

Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for Yediyurappa, said the High Court of Karnataka could not have ordered restoring the criminal case against the former CM and others as under the 2018 amendment of the Prevention of Corruption Act, a sanction was still needed. He told the bench that initially a private complaint was filed by A Alam Pasha in 2012 alleging de-notifying a parcel of acquired land to benefit private parties, when Yediyurappa was the chief minister in his first term. The 2012 complaint was dismissed by the court on the ground that there was no prior sanction to prosecute the BJP leader and the order had attained finality. Luthra said in 2014, a second complaint was filed, similar to the first one, when Yediyurappa demitted office but the trial court in 2016 dismissed it for need of prior sanction under the Prevention of Corruption Act. He said the high court on January 5, 2021 partly allowed Pasha's petition and set aside the August 26, 2016 order of the additional city civil and sessions judge related to three of the four accused, including Yediyurappa, dismissing the complaint against them.

The high court restored the criminal complaint in the files of the trial court, he said. Luthra said the high court said the quashing of the previous complaint for want of sanction would not act as a bar to maintain the latest complaint filed in 2014 after the respondents demitted office. The bench said there were a number of cases listed for hearing and it was unable to differentiate the facts of each case. It asked Luthra to frame the question of laws in the petitions and file short submissions on each case. The senior counsel said there were five sets of cases involving Yediyurappa, of which the lead case arose from the January 5, 2021 order of the high court.