The Forest Minister C.P. Yogeshwar, who has been facing a criminal case of defrauding members of a real estate company of more than Rs. 30 crore filed by the Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs, has been slapped with another criminal case by a subsidiary company of Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise Limited (NICE) on the charge of cheating it of Rs. 2 crore and breach of trust.
The complaint was lodged in the Vidhana Soudha Police Station by Ashok Kheny, director of Nandi Engineering Limited which is constructing the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Project. Mr. Yogeshwar, who was then developing the Megacity Project on the outskirts of the city, is alleged to have approached the company assuring them of a transfer of his land for the project in 2005.
The complaint said that he summoned them to Legislators' Home for final negotiations, after which the company had issued two cheques for Rs. 1 crore each in January 2005.
Mr. Kheny alleged that the Minister neither transferred the land nor returned the money even after the two-year deadline had passed.
In Assembly
Meanwhile, the Minister's bête noire, Congress MLA D.K. Shivakumar raised the issue in the Legislative Assembly and demanded the filing of an FIR against Mr. Yogeshwar. He asked why the police had not already done so. Reacting to this, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister S. Suresh Kumar assured him of immediate action.
‘Motivated'
Mr. Yogeshwar told presspersons that it was a politically motivated complaint “filed by his detractors”.
Mr. Kheny, however, said the complaint was “not politically motivated”.
