The centrally empowered committee (CEC), appointed by the Supreme Court to find the facts of the Karnataka mining scam, has recommended to the court to consider directing a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into alleged nepotism by former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa.
It has also urged the court to order an investigation into the alleged link between the donations made by South West Mining Ltd, a Jindal group company, to a Prerana Education Society, set up by the ex-chief minister’s close relatives, and the alleged receipt of illegal mineral by JSW Steel Ltd.
Payments made by a mining lessee, Parveen Chandra, to companies, whose directors are close relatives of the former chief minister, are also under the scanner. The two companies are Bhagat Homes P Ltd, and Dhavalagir Property Developers P Ltd. It is alleged that the payments were made as quid pro quo for allotment of mining leases. The CEC has suggested an inquiry to unearth any link between the payments and the grant of mining leases to Chandra.
The close relatives of Yeddyurappa referred to in the report are his sons, Vijayendra and Raghavendra, and son-in-law R N Sohan Kumar. According to the allegations, the former chief minister denotified the land acquired for a project and allowed it to be sold at a huge profit by his relatives. Further, he permitted land conversion from agricultural to residential, which was illegal. The land that was acquired at a small price was sold to the Jindal group company at a huge profit, a “windfall” for his sons, it is alleged.
The report listed seven “serious illegalities/irregularities and misuse of public office for the benefit of the close relatives of the then chief minister.”
The CEC stated that the Karnataka Land (Restriction on Transfer) Act prohibited sale of urban land acquired by the government for a public purpose. Violating this law, sale deeds were registered in 2006, which were not permissible. The land which was sold at a huge profit after denotification was in the midst of a Bangalore Development Authority project.
More From This Section
The land was integral to the project and area around it was developed. Therefore, the denotification was not for any valid public cause but for private gain, the report said.
The report concluded this was perhaps not the only case of denotification for private gains by “powerful vested interests”.
For these reasons, the CEC asked the Supreme Court to direct an independent agency, like the CBI, to make a detailed and time-bound inquiry and take follow-up action into not only these specific instances, but also into similar transactions.
Later, while hearing the matter on Friday, Supreme Court chief justice S H Kapadia declined to consider the report of the CEC on the ground that parallel proceedings in another special leave petition were pending before another bench of the apex court. A public-spirited person by the name of Vishwanath of Ramanagar, near Bangalore, had filed the petition recently against the Karnataka High Court order which had quashed the police case registered against Yeddyurappa in the illegal mining case.
The High Court had ruled that there was no undue favour given by the former chief minister while granting a mining lease to a subsidiary of JSW Steel, South West Mining Company Limited.
According to Prabhulinga Navadagi, counsel for Yeddyurappa, the chief justice of the Supreme Court noticed the report submitted by CEC early this morning. “The SC, however, declined to consider the report in the light of the SLP being posted for hearing on Monday, April 23. The question of ordering investigation against Yeddyurappa does not arise at this stage.”
This observation of the Apex Court has come as a breather for Yeddyurappa, who is making all out efforts to stage a comeback as chief minister of Karnataka. Even the party high command had told him to wait till for the outcome of the CEC recommendation before any decision regarding his political future was taken.