MLC nominations: High Court asks petitioner to furnish details

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has directed the petitioner, who has approached the high court in respect of nominated members to legislative council, to furnish the details of such MLCs who were nominated to the Upper House since 1986.

The division bench, headed by Chief Justice D.H. Waghela, has orally directed petitioner Bannur K. Raju to furnish details of such members. It observed that approaching the court with ‘mere’ allegations would not substantiate the case.

Raju alleged in his petition that according to Article 171(5), it is the Governor who chooses and nominates the members to the legislative council, but successive state governments have set a precedent to recommend a list of members to be nominated for the upper house to the Governor. “During the period between 1986 and 2012, most of the members were nominated by the Governor based on the list sent by the state Chief Minister, who are from the political field either in ruling party are opposition party and have absolutely no knowledge, experience in the filed of literature, science, art, co-operation movement and so on,” it stated.

Setback to Revanna
The high court on Wednesday rejected a petition filed by former minister H. D. Revanna, seeking to quash Lokayukta court proceedings relating to alleged illegal denotification in Banashankari 6th phase. The court rejected Mr Revanna’s plea to quash the FIR and further proceedings citing that investigation was under progress and as per SC ruling the higher courts are directed not to interfere in corruption case while they are dealt before lower court.

The Lokayukta special court had ordered investigation into a private complaint against former Chief Minister N. Dharam Singh and others, including Mr Revanna, following a private complaint by Rayasandra Ravikumar of Turuvekere, alleging that Revanna’s sister-in-law bought a piece of land for RS 50 lakh, even as the land was under acquisition and then Dharam Singh had denotified it. It is alleged that after the denotification, the same land was sold at Rs 4 crore to Sobha Developers, causing a huge loss to the state exchequer.

The complainant has named Dharam Singh as prime accused and listed Revanna; Kavita Balakrishne Gowda, wife of H.D. Balakrishne Gowda; JD(S) MLC K.V. Narayanaswamy and others as co-accused in the case. He stated that 10.17 acres of land in Hosahalli village under Uttarahalli hobli had been acquired by the BDA to form Banashankari Layout 6th phase and also to build a connecting road to Kanakapura.

Bail plea rejected
The high court has rejected the bail petition of Yerriswamy, alleged close aide of former minister G, Janardhan Reddy. He was arrested in connection with the CBI probe into the supply of the nine lakh tonnes of illicit iron ore to Dream Logistics.