The High Court of Karnataka on Thursday stayed further proceedings in the criminal case registered against Minister R.V. Deshpande in connection with the allegation that he had illegally denotified some land when he was a Minister earlier.
The Lokayukta police had registered the case against him on February 21, 2015 on the direction issued on February 18 by the Special Lokayukta Court, which had acted on a private complaint filed by Vasudeva Reddy on July 5, 2013.
Justice A.N. Venugopala Gowda passed the interim order on the petition filed by Mr. Deshpande, who claimed that Mr. Reddy filed the complaint to settle personal vengeances as his father, P. Narayanappa, had lost all the cases before the High Court and the Supreme Court against acquisition of their land at Devarabisanahalli, near Belandur, in Bengaluru.
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Mr. Deshpande claimed he was not Minister for Industries in 2006 when certain parcels of land, which were part of 500 acres acquired for various industries, were denotified.
It was pointed out that the allotment of land to some industries were also upheld by the higher courts besides turning down plea of the complainant’s father for denotifying their land on the lines of some other land.
It has been claimed in the petition that the Special Court referred the complaint for investigation without proper application of mind as no criminal act is forthcoming from the averments made in the complaint.
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It was alleged in the petition that some real estate firms, including the one in which Mr. Deshpande had stakes, built multi-storeyed residential complexes on denotified land, and some were purchased by Mr. Deshpande in the name of benamidars.