In a relief to Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, a special court on Monday discharged him from an alleged corruption case related to his action of ordering denotification of about 3.09 acres of land, situated at Thanisandra village, which was acquired by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) for the formation of the Arkavathy Layout.
A special court, which has been set up to hear all types of criminal cases against elected representatives — MLAs, MPs, etc, — passed the order while allowing applications filed by Mr. Kumaraswamy and four others, seeking discharge on the ground that there is no material to frame charges against them based on the chargesheet filed by the Lokayukta police. It was alleged that Mr. Kumaraswamy had misused his official position as Chief Minister in 2007. The allegation was that Mr. Kumaraswamy had ordered denotification of this land illegally at the behest of the then Minister C. Chennigappa.
After the judgment, Hashmath Pasah, counsel for Mr. Kumaraswamy, told reporters that the special court, among other reasons, held that it was not a fit case to frame charges against the accused. It also concluded that the prosecuting agency had not secured sanction from the competent authority as mandated by law for prosecuting a public servant, as Mr. Kumaraswamy was the Chief Minister then.
The certified copy of the judgment is yet to be released.
The court also discharged former bureaucrat Jyothi Ramalingam, Mr. Chennigappa, and landowners Ravi Prakash A.V. and Sriram A.V.
One Mahadevaswamy M.S. had lodged a private complaint with the special court for Lokayukta cases in 2012 and the case was referred to the Lokayukta police for investigation. Later, the Lokayukta police filed a chargesheet against him and others. It was contended on behalf of Mr. Kumaraswamy that there was no illegality or corruption in the case as he had legally discharged his power as per the law.
