Court orders on complaint against 3 ex-CMs today
Mangalore Today / PTI
Bangalore, Dec 2: The Special Lokayukta Court will pronounce orders on Saturday on a private complaint filed against three former chief ministers and bureaucrats.
Hearing a complaint filed by Abraham T J, the court sought to clear several doubts. The complainant, who was asked whether he had any hidden agenda, replied in the negative and said he merely wanted the truth to come in the open. “Even 90 days after the (Lokayukta) report was submitted to the government, there are contentions and they are trying to demolish the sanctity of the report,” he submitted.
Abraham, a businessman, alleged that no action had been initiated against several politicians and officials, even though they had been implicated in the two reports of the Lokayukta on illegal mining in the State. The names of External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, former chief ministers Dharam Singh and H D Kumaraswamy, IAS officers Gangaram Baderiya, V Umesh, I R Perumal, Mahendra Jain, K S Manjunath (Retd), D S Ashwath (Retd), former IPS officer Jija Madhavan Hari Singh, former Director of Mines and Geology, Basappa Reddy, deputy general managers of Mysore Minerals Limited (MML) K
Srinivas, M Ramappa and Shankarlingaiah are given as accused in the complaint.
Judge Sudhindra Rao sought to know if the complainant had not named people selectively, as others named in the mining report seemed to have been left out of the complaint. To this, Abraham replied that others, most notably B S Yeddyurappa, was already facing charges before the same court and that he did not want to repeat it.
The complaint stated that Krishna, during his tenure as chief minister, illegally amassed wealth in the name of his family members, and also in the names of his erstwhile close Cabinet colleagues, in return for de-reserving forest land for private companies.
In one instance, an agreement with Kalyani Ferrous required MML to pay an interest of 10 per cent on the advance amount paid by Kalyani, even though such an agreement was not to be found with other companies. It also indicates losses of Rs 25.72 crore caused to MML due to its mining agreement with Vijayanagar Mines Private Limited and Jindal.
On being asked about the documents the complainant had provided to prove that Krishna benefited in anyway from de-reservation of forest land, Abraham said that while there was no direct reference, documents showed that at the time corresponding to the de-reservation of land, properties were acquired in and around Bangalore in the name of Krishna’s son-in-law.
The complaint accused Dharam Singh of issuing temporary transport permits for movement of iron ore and manganese ore from agricultural lands not held under the mining lease, and by violating rules. This has resulted in a loss of Rs 23.22 crore.
Kumaraswamy is accused of approving mining licence to Sai Venkateshwara Minerals and renewing the lease of Janthakal Enterprises illegally. The complaint accused him of diverting the illegal money, obtained through favours, in the name of his brother H D Balakrishna.
The charges against the officials are the same as those indicated in the first report submitted to the government by the former Lokayukta Santosh Hegde.