In a major relief to Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, the Supreme Court on Friday rejected a petition for vacating the stay on trial proceedings before a Bengaluru special court in a land allocation case on a private complaint filed following grant of sanction by governor H.R. Bhardwaj.
Refusing to entertain the petition of Sirajin Basha, the complainant, who had filed the case, a bench of Justices V.S. Sirpurkar and T.S. Thakur asked his counsel K.K. Venugopal to take up the issue with the Karnataka high court itself which had passed the stay order.
However, the top court asked the HC to dispose of the petition of Mr Basha, a Bengaluru-based advocate and alleged sympathiser of the Congress, within six weeks of its filing.
Mr Basha had moved the top court earlier this month through advocate Prashant Kumar challenging the March 29 order of the HC granting stay on the trial court proceedings on the petition of Mr Yeddyurappa’s son-in-law Sohankumar. Mr Basha’s counsel Mr Venugopal told the top court that the stay order was passed by the HC ex-parte without hearing the complainant. But the top court told the senior counsel that, the remedy only lies with the HC as it had only granted an interim stay.
Mr Basha in his petition had submitted before the top court that though the chief minister had not himself filed a petition in the HC, he had tried to fire from the shoulder of his son-in-law, one of the accused named in the complaint case.
Besides, he alleged that the case was handed over by the government to the same SP who had earlier rejected the complaint against the CM filed before submitting it to the governor.
The special judge on March 24 postponed prosecution on the complaint and ordered the investigation by the police against the CM and his family members on the complaint filed by Mr Basha and asked it to submit a report by May 4.