Former Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Friday appeared before the special court for cases related to MPs/MLAs in a land denotification case. The court had issued summons to Yediyurappa in the case pertaining to the denotification of 17.18 acres of land acquired by the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) for the purpose of establishing an infrastructure corridor.
On appearance, the counsel for Yediyurappa moved an application seeking bail. Special court Judge B Jayantha Kumar adjourned the matter to Saturday directing the counsel for the complainant to file a response. The counsel for the complainant K V Dhananjay submitted that he will file his response after going through the bail application.
The case pertains to a denotification order issued on June 21, 2006 when Yediyurappa was the Deputy Chief Minister of the coalition government. The Lokayukta police had filed an additional B (closure) report in August 2021. It was stated in the report that none of the witnesses stated to have paid any amount to Yediyurappa for denotification of lands and therefore, there was no material or evidence to file a chargesheet against him. While rejecting the B report, the special court had observed that payment of gratification is not necessary to attract section 13 (1) (d) of the PC Act.
The special court judge ordered for registering a special criminal case for the offence punishable under section 13 (1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act against Yediyurappa noting that the denotification order passed was prima facie not in exercise of the lawful powers vested in him in view of the dissent/opinion expressed by the officials, Chief Executive Officer of KIADB, Law Department and Advocate General.
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