Supreme Court Refuses To Vacate Stay On Restoration Of Criminal Case Against Former Karnataka CM Yediyurappa

On Monday, the Supreme Court of India rejected an application seeking to vacate an earlier order of the Court which stayed the restoration of a criminal case against former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa and former State Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani in an alleged illegal land de-notification case. A three-judge Bench of the Court had passed the stay order on April 5, 2021. A Bench of Justices BR Gavai and Vikram Nath rejected the application filed by Alam Pasha observing that the advocates appearing on his behalf were heard before passing the April 5 order. "We find that via the present application, the applicant has prayed that this court should hear counsel Mr. AP Mohanty in a fresh hearing of SLP 2771-2773/2021. The impugned order is passed by three judges. A perusal of the order dated April 5, 2021 states that the petitioner as well as Ms. Vijaya Lakshmi (advocates for the Respondent) were present when the order was passed. In that view of the matter, we are not inclined to entertain the present application. Rejected." The interlocutory application was filed in Yediyurappa's special leave petition challenging an order passed by the Karnataka High Court order allowing restoration of a criminal case against him in 2021. During the hearing, the Bench opined that the correctness of the stay order can't be gone into. "Correctness of the order, we can't go into. File review petition (against the April 5 order). Justices Ramasubramanian, Bopanna are all very much here (they were part of the quoram which passed the April 5 order)" The Court will hear the case on January 31. In his plea before the Supreme Court, Yediyurappa submitted– "...by virtue of the impugned Judgement, the Hon'ble High Court erroneously set aside the aforesaid Order only on the ground that the Petitioner had demitted the Office which had allegedly been abused by him at the time of commission of the alleged Offence and therefore no sanction was necessary to be obtained. The same is contrary to the settled law laid down by this Hon'ble Court in a catena of judgements as well as the provisions of the amended PC Act." Subsequent to the enactment of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act 2018, the Petitioner submitted that section 19 thereof offer protection to a Public servant, "who is employed, or as the case may be, was at the time of commission of the alleged offence employed in connection with the affairs of a State...". Thus, it was contended that the impugned Judgement ought to be set aside on this ground alone. Case Title: BS Yediyurappa v A Alam Pasha SLP(Crl) No. 520/2021

Supreme Court Refuses To Vacate Stay On Restoration Of Criminal Case Against Former Karnataka CM Yediyurappa

Rintu Mariam Biju

Tags