New Delhi: A fresh private complaint will be filed by Srijan Basha in the lower court in Karnataka against former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa for denotifying lands.
Senior counsel Gopal Subramanian, appearing for Mr Basha, told a Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and A.M. Sapre that the present appeal is against a Karnataka High Court judgement quashing the FIRs and the order passed by former Governor H.R. Bhardwaj according sanction for prosecution in the mining scam.
When the Bench wanted to know the status of the complaint, counsel said that no case is pending as the present governor had refused sanction and the matter is disposed of. When counsel submitted that no sanction is required for prosecution for offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, the bench asked whether the complainant had filed a fresh private complaint under the PC Act. Justice Chelameswar observed, “When the complainant had slept over all these years, you cannot expect this court to pass orders on a complaint when subsequent orders had been passed.”
Counsel said that a fresh private complaint will be filed in the competent court and sought adjournment of the matter and the bench posted the case for further hearing after four weeks.
In his SLP, Mr Basha, who had filed the complaints before the Lokayukta, said that the quashing of sanction by a competent authority was bad in law and impermissible and against a catena of judgements of the Supreme Court. He said the pendency of complaint filed by him regarding the same transaction involving payment of money by South West Mining Corporation was made a ground of challenge in the writ petition filed by Mr Yeddyurappa, but despite this no notice was issued.
He said that the impugned judgement by recording findings on merit as also by setting aside the sanction granted by the competent authority on ground of denial of opportunity had potentially affected the trial of five complaint cases before the Lokayukta court in which summons had been issued to Mr Yeddyurappa and other accused.
The SLP said the high court had exercised its powers under Section 482 of the CrPC in a writ petition and had grossly erred by quashing the FIR on ground of denial of opportunity as FIR required only prima facie material to commence investigation which was very much on record and had been completely ignored by the high court. Even otherwise the High Court could not have gone into the sufficiency or sufficiency of evidence, the SLP said and prayed for quashing the impugned judgment.
