Final hearing in SC of state's plea against quashing Katta case

The Supreme Court on Monday decided to put for final hearing a plea by the Karnataka government challenging quashing of the Lokayukta proceedings against former minister Katta Subramanya Naidu in the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) scam.

A bench of Justices R F Nariman and Sanjay Kishan Kaul granted leave in the matter and ordered expedited hearing in the special leave petition on a request made by senior advocate Vikas Singh and advocate Joseph Aristotle, representing the government. The court directed tagging of the petition with a separate plea filed against then MD of ITASCA Software Development Pvt Ltd, S V Srinivas.

The scam involved the then minister for Industries, IT and BT, his son and others. They were alleged to have defrauded farmers by taking over their land through some firms. The then minister was accused of illegal gratification; committing irregularities in allotment of lands and exercising undue influence on various persons including private persons and the officials of KIADB. Srinivas was accused of paying money to Naidu and his son.

The proceedings were initiated alleging the accused committed forgery by applying whitener after the signatures of the then chief minister. The former minister was alleged to have dropped approximately 450 acres of land in Bandikodigehalli from acquisition and notified those separately for acquisition without the consent of the landowners. The Karnataka High Court, however, had quashed the criminal case on November 3, last year.