The former Chief Minister, B.S. Yeddyurappa, on Saturday moved the Karnataka High Court questioning the legality of registration of the First Information Report (FIR) against him based on a complaint filed by the State’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) that he had allegedly misused his official position as Chief Minister to illegally denotify land acquired for the Dr. Shivarama Karanth Layout proposed by the Bangalore Development Authority.
The petition is likely to come up for hearing next week.
It has been contended in the petition that notification for acquiring land was issued on December 31, 2008, and a single judge of the High Court on November 26, 2014, had quashed the notification as acquisition was not completed within a five-year period, as per the law. Also, a Division Bench on April 28, 2017, had upheld the order of the single judge in setting aside the land acquisition.
Claiming that the FIR was registered as a result of a political conspiracy and vendetta as the ACB directly comes under the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR), which is headed by none other than the Chief Minister, he said the ACB is being used against the leaders of Opposition parties.
It has been contended in the petition that D. Aiyappa, the complainant, is neither a landowner nor a beneficiary to lodge a complaint with regard to the process of denotification, while pointing out that the decision to denotify lands are administrative actions.
