Chief Minister Siddaramaiah recently approached the Karnataka High Court, appealing a previous single-judge decision that upheld the Governor’s sanction for investigation in the alleged MUDA scam case. The earlier order was passed by Justice M Nagaprasanna on September 24. The case is centred around 14 sites worth Rs 56 crore that were allotted to CM Siddaramaiah’s wife as compensation by MUDA (Mysuru Urban Development Authority) after around three acres of land gifted to her had been acquired. Siddaramaiah had argued before the Court that the sanction granted by the Governor was without application of mind as he had sent show cause notices the same day that he had received private complaints regarding the issue. It was also argued that Siddaramaiah had taken no decisions regarding the matter, and further there were more than 100 other beneficiaries whose land was acquired. With regard to the sanction, the Court stated that while the Governor normally had to act on the advice of the Council of Ministers, as per Supreme Court precedent an exception existed while considering the prosecution of a minister or chief minister. The Court also disagreed that the decision had been made with undue haste, since that would only affect the case if it were a ‘mala fide’ decision. Justice Nagaprasanna had raised questions with regard to the value of the original land vis-a-vis the value of the compensation land and stated, “the determined compensation amount in favour of the owner of the land is at (Rs) 3,56,000/- in the year 1997 and in 2021 this becomes (Rs) 56 crores as compensation to the owner; the owner is wife of the petitioner (Siddaramaiah). The aforesaid facts are all borne out of records. All these things have happened between 1996 to 2022. This is the period in which the petitioner was at the helm of affairs twice; a lawmaker twice; the Chief Minister once. It is rather difficult to accept that the beneficiary of the entire transaction. is not the family of the petitioner.” At the time of filing this report, the appeal against this order was yet to have been set before a bench of the high court.
