Land row: Mayor gets HC relief

The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday stayed proceedings against Mayor D Venkatesh Murthy and his wife K Prabha for one week in connection a case filed against them by Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force (BMTF) over alleged illegal allotment of eight acres of Bagair Hukum (Government) land to them.

Justice H N Nagmohan Das passed this order on a petition filed by the couple seeking quashing of the complaint against them relating to sanction of land at Somanahalli village in Uttarahalli Hobli by Deputy Chief Minister R Ashok, who headed the Bagair Hukum Land Grant Committee as the MLA of Padmanabhanagar Assembly constituency in 2004.

Hearing the petition, Justice Das ordered issue of notice to the Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force and stayed the proceedings for one week. He adjourned the case for further hearing.

Argument

Earlier, during the hearing, counsel for the petitioners contended, “They (Murthy and his wife) have been falsely framed in the case for extraneous reasons and the allegations are insufficient to satisfy the ingredients of the offence.”

The Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force is declared to be a police station in terms of a government notification and according to that, it does not empower the respondent police to register any case under IPC Section 197 at all. Thus, being the case, the very initiation of it by the respondent is not sustainable and liable to be quashed, he argued.

The Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force has registered a case against Mayor and his wife for allegedly claiming as landless labourers to get the land. It has also issued notice to Home and Deputy Chief Minister Ashok in this connection with this case.