The former Minister Katta Subramanya Naidu on Wednesday withdrew a petition in which he had challenged the chargesheet filed against him by the Lokayukta in the multi-crore KIADB-ITASCA land scam case.
Mr. Naidu’s counsel sought the court’s permission to withdraw the petition when the matter came up for hearing before Justice A.S. Pachhapure. Similarly, his son, Katta Jagadish, too withdrew the petition challenging the chargesheet. The court dismissed the petitions as withdrawn.
Interestingly, the petitions were withdrawn at a stage when counsel for Mr. Naidu had presented a full-fledged argument about two weeks ago.
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It was the turn of counsel for the Lokayukta to submit his arguments on Wednesday.
However, counsel for the Lokayukta was not present when the plea for withdrawal was made in the morning.
Later, Lokayukta counsel mentioned the matter to the judge pointing out that it was his turn to argue and the petitions were withdrawn in his absence, and pleaded the court to record that plea for withdrawal of the petitions were made after the court had heard a full-fledged argument of counsel for the petitioners.
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However, the court told Lokayukta counsel that it had permitted withdrawal of the petitions as per law.
Though Mr. Naidu and his son have withdrawn their petitions, the law does not prevent them from filing fresh petitions.
Notice to Yeddyurappa
The High Court on Wednesday ordered issue of notices to the former Chief Minister and Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) president B.S. Yeddyurappa and the party’s campaign committee chairperson Dhananjay Kumar in a petition questioning Mr. Yeddyurappa’s appointment as party president.
Justice S. Abdul Nazeer passed the order in the petition filed by KJP’s founder-president Prasanna Kumar, who has challenged the February 21 decision of the Election Commission of India accepting Mr. Yeddyurappa as KJP president even after a complaint from him.
The High Court had, on February 27, ordered issue of notice only to the Election Commission of India.
On Wednesday, the court ordered issue of notice to Mr. Yeddyurappa and Mr. Dhananjay Kumar while asking counsel for the Election Commission to file a response.
The petitioner said that he had in his letter said that he was resigning “temporarily” from the post of president of the party due to ill-health but the letter sent to the Election Commission of India by Mr. Dhananjay Kumar was “altered” to mean that he had resigned from the post.
He said that in the resignation letter he had stated that “he would re-assume the office of party president after he recovers from ill-health” but the letter sent to the Election Commission gave a different meaning.