Complaint against BSY, kin posted to Aug 8 for orders

After hearing the arguments in the second complaint, filed by Bengaluru-based Sirajin Basha and his associate K N Balaraj, Special Lokayukta Judge N K Sudhindhra Rao posted the complaint for orders to August 8.

Earlier, senior counsel for the complainants, C H Hanumantharaya briefed the judge about the background and completed his arguments on the second complaint. He submitted three instances where government lands had been denotified "unilaterally by Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa without placing the applications before the denotification committee", allegedly causing a loss of over Rs 60 crore to the state exchequer.

The instances he submitted comprised denotification of 2 acres, five guntas of land in Arakere village, denotification of one acre, seven guntas of land in Devarachikkanahalli in Begur Hobli in Bengaluru South taluk and denotification of one acre and 21 guntas in Geddalahalli village in Bangalore East taluk.

The high court, had on April one granted interim stay on a lower court order that had taken cognisance of the offences filed against them in four of the five private complaints.

Earlier on March 29, the high court had stayed proceedings in the first complaint, over which the lower court had ordered for Lokayukta investigations by an order.

On Jul 21, the Karnataka high court dismissed all five petitions filed by Yeddyurappa's son-in-law and others praying for quashing of a lower court order taking cognisance of offences made out against Yeddyurappa, him and others over the alleged land scams.

The court observed that the petitions were "highly premature and have no locus standi to question the correctness of the (lower court's) order" and that the order was in "accordance with law and did not suffer from any 'legal infirmity, lacunae'".

Justice K N Keshavanarayana in his order stated "in view of the dismissal of the petitions, investigation ordered by the Lokayukta Special Judge in PCR no 2/2011, shall proceed and in PCR no 3 to 6/2011, the special judge shall proceed further."