The Supreme Court has rejected the application seeking to vacate an earlier order of the Court restoring a criminal case in an alleged illegal land de-notification case against former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa and former State Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani.
On April 5 last year, a two-judge Bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice Vikram Nath had rejected an application that was filed by Alam Pasha, observing that the Advocates appearing on his behalf were heard before passing the order.
The order passed by the judges said they found that via the present application, the applicant has prayed to the court for hearing Counsel AP Mohanty in a fresh hearing of SLP 2771-2773/2021.
As per the order dated April 5, 2021, the petitioner as well as Vijaya Lakshmi (Advocate for the Respondent) were there during the order but said nothing, so now the court was not inclined to entertain the present application and hence, the same stood rejected, observed the Apex Court.
Yediyurappa had filed the interlocutory application in special leave petition challenging an order passed by the Karnataka High Court order allowing restoration of a criminal case against him in 2021.
The Bench opined during the hearing that the correctness of the stay order could not be gone into.
The Bench suggested to file review petition (against the April 5 order). Justice Ramasubramanian and Justice Bopanna were all very much here (they were part of the quoram, which passed the April 5 order).
The matter would now be heard by the court on January 31.
In his plea before the Supreme Court, Yediyurappa submitted that by the virtue of the impugned Judgement, the High Court had 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 Bench added that this was contrary to the settled law laid down by this Court in many judgments as well as the provisions of the amended PC Act.
It further added that it was contended that the impugned verdict ought to be set aside on this ground alone.