In a setback for Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, the Karnataka High Court Tuesday dismissed his petition against an approval granted by the state Governor to three persons to file cases of corruption against him over a land grant to his wife by the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA).
Hearing the Congress leader’s plea, Justice M. Nagaprasanna observed, “The facts narrated in the petition need investigation. The petition stands dismissed”. Siddaramaiah in his plea sought quashing the order issued by Governor Thaawar Chand Gehlot, granting sanction to prosecute the CM in the alleged MUDA scam.
The HC observed the three private complainants were justified in registering their complaint and seeking approval from the governor for prosecuting the CM. In his judgment, the single judge bench of Justice Nagaprasanna said that the order of sanction for prosecution does not suffer from non-application of mind by the Governor.
“The facts narrated in the petition would undoubtedly require investigation, in the teeth of the fact that the beneficiary of all these acts is not anybody outside but the family of the petitioner. The petition stands dismissed,” Justice Nagaprasanna ruled.
The governor, in a six-page letter issued in August, accorded sanction to prosecute Siddaramaiah under section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and Section 218 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 for the commission of offences as mentioned in the petitions of social activist T.J. Abraham, Pradeep Kumar S.P, and Snehamayi Krishna.
In the MUDA ‘scam’, it is alleged that compensatory sites were allotted to Siddaramaiah’s wife Parvathi in an upmarket area in Mysore, which had higher property value as compared to the location of her land which had been “acquired” by the MUDA. The MUDA had allotted plots to Parvathi under a 50:50 ratio scheme in lieu of 3.16 acres of her land, where MUDA developed a residential layout.
Under the controversial scheme, MUDA allotted 50 per cent of developed land to the land losers in lieu of undeveloped land acquired from them for forming residential layouts. The opposition has claimed that the MUDA scam is of the magnitude of Rs 4,000 crore to Rs 5,000 crore.
