SC stays criminal proceedings against Karnataka CM B S Yediyurappa

The bench suspended the operation of the High Court's order of March 21

In a relief to Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, the Supreme Court on Monday stayed the criminal proceedings against him in a land denotification case.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian suspended the operation of the High Court's order of March 17, which has restored the criminal case proceedings, in the case related to denotification of over 20 acres of industrial land in Bengaluru North in 2007.

Senior advocate K V Vishwanathan, appearing for Yediyurappa, contended that he could not be prosecuted for bona fide administrative decision.

After hearing him, the court issued notice to original complainant, A Alam Basha, the Karnataka government as well as to the Lokayukta on the petition against the High Court's order.

"In the meantime, there shall be stay of operation of the order as well as stay of further proceedings in the criminal case," the bench said.

The top court's order also came as a relief for Minister for Mines and Geology Murugesh R Nirani, who separately challenged the High Court's order. He was named as accused in the complaint.

The special court had refused to proceed against Yediyurappa and then large and medium scale industries minister Katta Subramanya Naidu in the case. The trial court said since there were no allegations against Yediyurappa and Naidu in the complaint, it could not take cognisance of the charge sheet filed against them.

The HC, however, set aside the trial court's order of July 25, 2016 that had quashed the complaint which also named another minister Nirani as one of the accused.

It directed the special court to take cognisance of offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act against him, and proceed further on the basis of charge sheet filed by the Lokayukta Police on May 25, 2012.

In his petition filed through advocates Kush Chaturvedi and Sandeep Patil, Yediyurappa contended that the High Court could not have directed the trial court to take cognizance of the offence without prior sanction against the petitioner, a public servant.

He also said the High Court ought to have appreciated that the petitioner was not named as an accused in the private complaint.

"The High Court ought not to have interfered with judicial independence of the trial court by directing him to issue a particular order," his plea said.