By IANS,
Bangalore : Scam-hit former Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa Tuesday sought anticipatory bail in two graft cases in which he and his kin were summoned by the state Lokayukta (ombudsman) court last week.
Yeddyurappa filed two anticipatory bail applications in the Karnataka High Court after the Lokayukta police served the summons (in person) issued Aug 8 by the ombudsman court to appear before it Aug 27 on a private complaint against him alleging irregularities in de-notifying lands and on a first information report (FIR) filed against him Aug 10 in a graft case related to a contract in an irrigation project.
The complaint was filed in January by two city advocates Siranjin Basha and K.N. Balraj against Yeddyurappa and 14 others, including his two sons – B.Y. Vijayendra and B.Y. Raghavendra and son-in-law Sohan Kumar for pecuniary benefit from the denotification (freeing from government control) of 2.5 acres at Arakere and 1.7 acres at Devarachikkanahalli in south Bangalore and 1.21 acres at Gedalahalli in east Bangalore, flouting rules.
Raghavendra is the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Lok Sabha member from Yeddyurappa’s home district Shimoga, about 280 km from here.
The FIR was filed under section 13(1) of the Karnataka Lokayukta Act, 1994 and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 on a complaint filed by Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) lawmaker Y.S.V. Datta in the Lokayukta court against Yeddyurappa and Dhavalagiri Properties and Developers Ltd., a firm in which his two sons are partners.
The complaint accused Dhavalagiri of receiving a kickback of Rs.13 crore from RNS Infrastructure Ltd., a subsidiary of Murudeshwara Power Corporation Ltd. of industrialist R.N. Shetty, in return for being awarded work contract by the Yeddyurappa government in fiscal 2008-09 to execute the second phase of Upper Bhadra lift irrigation project in Chitradurga district, about 200 km from here.
The state-run Karnataka Neeravari Nigam Ltd. awarded the contract when Yeddyurappa was its chairman.
Yeddyurappa, who became the ruling party’s first chief minister in south India, resigned July 31 after he was indicted in the multi-crore rupee mining scam by former ombudsman Justice N. Santosh Hegde and recommended his graft trial in a probe report submitted to the state government July 27.