SC Notice to Kumaraswamy, Wife in Mining Case

New Delhi, Feb 14 (DHNS): The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to former Karnataka chief minister H D Kumaraswamy and his wife Anita on a plea challenging the Karnataka High Court order quashing the criminal proceedings against them for allegedly favouring a mining firm and a housing cooperative society for obtaining financial benefits.

A bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai sought the response from the Lok Sabha MP and his wife on the petition filed by Bangalore resident M Vinod Kumar.

Kumar, through his special leave petition filed by advocate Nikhil Majithia, challenged the HC’s order passed on October 21.

The HC had provided relief to Kumaraswamy, Anita, a Janata Dal (Secular) MLA, and some others who were issued summons by the Lokayukta court on the complaint filed by Kumar.

Senior advocate L Nageswara Rao, appearing for Kumar, submitted before the apex court that the High Court had “erred” by concluding that no case was made out against Kumaraswamy and others.

According to the petition, Kumaraswamy, then as chief minister of Karnataka, had exercised “undue pressure” upon various state authorities in allowing Janthakal Enterprises to lift one lakh metric tonnes of iron ore and directing the mining lease to be awarded to it from a retrospective date.

“It is submitted that the official file notings pertaining to the case of Janthakal Enterprises clearly depicted that the commissioner had gone on record to state that undue pressure was brought upon him by the chief minister’s office and Respondent No 1 (Kumaraswamy) personally stating that all the government’s permissions and orders should be granted within a period of two hours in favour of Janthakal Enterprises even though it was clear that it did not possess the statutory permission to proceed with mining under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, and the Environmental Protection Act, 1986,” the petition said.