Activist Snehamayi Krishna opposed before the Karnataka High Court on Friday [August 14] trial court's acceptance of a 'B Report' (Closure Report) filed by Lokayukta police in the alleged MUDA land scam involving Ex- Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, his family members arguing that the report is inconclusive.

The court was hearing Krishna's plea challenging acceptance of B report.

Appearing for the activist senior advocate Lakhsmi Iyengar submitted before Justice M Nagapranna that the closure report runs into nearly 10,000 pages and that the trial court seemed to have conducted a 'mini-trial' at the stage of accepting the report.

During the hearing, the petitioner sought to place the entire charge sheet material before the court via a pen drive due to its massive volume.

“…10000 pages of practically inconclusive B Report, none of them could be material enough to be accepted. It is practically a mini trial conducted which at this stage was not required. Nor are the findings reasoned enough to accept a B report at this stage”, the petitioner submitted.

The court permitted the petitioner to place the voluminous records in electronic form and directed the registry to secure the records from the concerned trial court by telephonic instructions.

The Lokayukta, however, told the court that the final report is only a few pages and the rest of the pages are comprised of volumes of documents.

The Court also noted that notices to the respondents have been served. Advocate Aditya Narayan appeared for Respondent No. 5 (Devaraju) and the memo of retirement filed by Senior Advocate Madhukar Deshpande for Respondent No. 2 (Ex CM Siddaramaiah) was accepted by the Court.

The bench has listed the matter for further hearing on August 24 and asked the respondents to file their objections by then.

The court had earlier issued notice to the respondents in the matter, including the Karnataka former CM Siddharamaiah, his wife BM Parvathy, his brother-in-law Mallikarjun Swamy, land owner Devaraju, ED and Lokayuktha police.

On January 28, the trial court had accepted a B report filed by Superintendent of Police Karnataka Lokayuktha in the alleged scam.

In the plea before the High Court, the petitioner seeks that investigation in Crime No. 11/2024 be transferred to an independent investigating agency.

The petitioner also seeks a direction to conduct a fresh investigation into the alleged offences. The said investigating agency should be directed to submit a fresh report under Section 173 of the Cr.P.C. (now corresponding to Section 193 of BNSS), the plea states. Such investigation be monitored by a retired judge of the Karnataka High Court, the plea seeks.

The reliefs have been sought by the petitioner in light of the observations made by a coordinate bench in its September 2024 order WP No.22356/2024 titled Siddaramaiah AND State of Karnataka & Others where it had upheld the grant of sanction of the State's Governor under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 218 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita for investigation/prosecution against the Ex-Chief Minister in the alleged Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) scam.

The plea also refers to ED communication dated 30.11.2024 and ED's press release in January 2026.

The petitioner raised doubts about the trial court accepting the 'B' report against the former Chief Minister and his family members while directing further investigation against other MUDA officials, though the alleged crime arose from the same transaction.

The petitioner alleges that the trial court failed to appreciate the fact that it was a 'single, composite scheme' of criminal conspiracy involving the Ex-CM, his family, and the delinquent officials behind the MUDA Land scam.

The plea claims that the trial court has discarded the communications and documents produced by ED in the matter and adopted an approach of 'standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt' in the initial stage itself while closing the case.

Case Title: Snehamayi Krishna v. Superintendent of Police, Lokayuktha & Others

Case No: CRL.P 4706/2026