Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) on Thursday moved the High Court seeking a stay on the Lokayukta Court’s order for a probe into alleged irregularities in Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project undertaken by it.
NICE, its sister concern Nandi Economic Corridor Enterprise, managing director of NICE Ashok Kheny, former director of NICE Shivakumar Kheny and chairman of NICE Baba Kalyani filed five petitions in the HC, seeking exemption from producing certified copies of the probe order as it was not released.
The respondent, social activist and entrepreneur T J Abraham, objected to this, saying they were seeking a stay without even going through the order.
Senior counsel for NICE Dushyant Dave said the Lokayukta Court had “intentionally withheld the certified order copy even after 10 days”.
Justice H N Nagmohan Das then directed the Lokayukta Special Judge to initiate steps to issue certified copies of the order to all the applicants.Then Justice Das said since he had represented Abraham in cases earlier when he was an advocate, he recused himself from the case.
He directed the HC Registry to place the matter before the Chief Justice who would assign it to an appropriate bench.
Lokayukta Judge N K Sudhindra Rao had on October 25 ordered a probe against three former chief ministers -H D Deve Gowda, S M Krishna and B S Yeddyurappa - Ashok Kheny and 26 others for alleged lapses in land allotment to NICE, on a complaint filed Abraham.
The court had also ordered confiscation of the land and toll amount collected in the last two years. Abraham had filed a complaint with the Lokayukta Court, alleging that land was bought below the market rate from farmers for the NICE project.
Of the 20,193 acres with NICE, 5,972 acres were encroached upon illegally, Abraham had alleged.