Bangalore/ AGENCIES
In a setback to congress government in Karnataka, the Mysuru Lokayukta Police on Friday filed an FIR against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, his wife and two others in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment case as directed by a Special Court dealing with the cases of people’s representatives here.
The FIR has been registered under case number 11/2024 and the Lokayukta officials have made an official entry in the FIR. CM Siddaramaiah is mentioned as A1 and his B.M. Parvathi as A2, brother-in-law Mallikarjuna Swamy and Devaraju, who sold the land to Mallikarjuna Swamy who in turn gifted it to Parvathi.
Last Wednesday, the special court ordered a Lokayukta police probe against CM Siddaramaiah in the MUDA case. Earlier, the Karnataka High Court upheld the sanction granted by Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot to conduct a probe against Siddaramaiah on the alleged irregularities in the allotment of about fourteen sites to his wife B M Parvathi.
The Special Court, in its Wednesday’s order, directed the Lokayukta SP, Mysuru, to probe the case based on the complaint filed by RTI activist Snehamayi Krishna under section 156 (3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which empowers a magistrate to investigate into a cognizable offence. The Special Court also directed the police to file the investigation report by December 24.
Among the offences listed by the court were Sec 120B (criminal conspiracy), 403 (misappropriation of property), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 ( cheating) and 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating).
On the other hand, the HC earlier had dismissed CM Siddaramaiah’s petition challenging the legality of the Governor’s August 16 order approving investigation under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, 1988.
The MUDA site allotment case relates to alleged allotment of compensatory sites to Siddaramaiah’s wife in Mysuru, which had far higher property value when compared with her land “acquired” by the MUDA in exchange. The MUDA plots were allotted to Parvathi under a 50:50 ratio scheme in lieu of 3.16 acres of her land. Parvathi allegedly had no legal title over the 3.16 acres of land located at survey number 464 in the Kasare village of Kasaba hobli in the Mysuru taluk.