AMN/
A special CBI court in Karnataka today acquitted former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, now BJP State President, along with 12 others in the rupees 40 crore bribery and corruption case involving his family members and steel major, Jindal Steel Works, JSW.
It was alleged by the Lokayukta of karnataka that Mr Yeddyurappa, his two sons, son-in-law and a steel conglomerate JSW are involved in criminal conspiracy, bribery, forgery and corruption in a case.
Mr Yeddyurappa earlier tried to quash the case in the Supreme Court but was unable to do so. While Mr Yeddyurappa was the prime accused the others accused in the case were his sons Raghavendra, Vijayendra and son-in-law Sohan Kumar.
The South-West Mining case was part of Chapter 22 of the second part of Lokayukta report on illegal mining submitted by former Lokayukta N. Santosh Hegde in July 2011. The mining firm JSW , which is a part of the Jindal group bought 1.2 acres of land from a private firm owned by the Yeddyurappa family.
This transaction was done for rupees 20 crores, which was much higher than the guidance value. Another transaction also was made to Prerana Education Trust which is also run by Yeddyurappa family. JSW donated 10 crore rupees to the trust.
It is alleged that the bribe was paid for a grant of official favours during Yeddyurappa’s tenure as the Chief Minister between 2008 and 2011. A total of 216 witnesses were examined in the case.