Karnataka High Court quashes 15 FIRs against BS Yeddyurappa

BENGALURU: Four years after former chief minister and BJP’s national Vice-President B.S. Yeddyurappa went to jail in connection with denotification cases, the high court on Tuesday quashed 15 FIRs registered against him. The cases were filed based on Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report.

Justice Rathnakala, who had reserved the orders on a batch of petitions filed by Yeddyurappa challenging the FIRs registered against him, delivered judgment stating that FIRs cannot be filed based on CAG report. However, the single judge bench while allowing the petitions by Yeddyurappa, has also said in the order that other contentions in the matter are kept open. A private complaint was filed before the Lokayukta police by Jayakumar Hiremath following which 15 FIRs were registered against Yeddyurappa based on CAG report. Initially, there were three FIRs registered, according to which land was denotified at Sy No 251 in Halagevaderanahalli in Bengaluru South, Sy 5/1 and 6/3 in Bilekahalli and Sy no 117 in JB Kaval.

Earlier the high court had stayed the proceedings based on the FIR, but subsequently, 12 more FIRs were registered where the land was denotified at JP Nagar, HRBR Layout, Jayanagar 8th block and Rachenahalli and surrounding areas.

The CAG report said that denotifying land had caused huge loss to the state government's exchequer. Later, Yeddyurappa had approached the High Court on the ground that FIRs filed by Lokayukta was based on the CAG report, and not based on PAC (Public Accounts Committee) report, which is normally placed before the floor of the House to decide on the matter.

In the CAG report it is said that the land has been denotified but has not said that it was illegal, the advocate for BSY had earlier argued. He had also contended that the FIR has not been filed as per section 12 of the Lokayukta Act which calls for a compliance report to be placed before the competent authority who is the governor in this case.

It may be recalled that the state government had approached the Supreme Court in the matter seeking to vacate the stay on the proceedings, to which the SC had asked the Karnataka High Court to ‘expeditiously’ decide pleas relating to registration of FIRs by Lokayukta against Yeddyurappa in land-denotification cases in Bengaluru.