BENGALURU: Accusing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah of using the Anti-Corruption Bureau to harass opposition leaders, former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa on Saturday moved the High Court seeking to quash the FIR registered against him in alleged illegal denotification cases. Yeddyurappa filed the writ petition two days after the ACB served a notice on him to appear before it.
According to sources, Yeddyurappa has taken the ground that Siddaramaiah has targeted opposition leaders, especially him, as he was projected as chief ministerial candidate by BJP. Of the two FIRs, Yeddyurappa has challenged one dated August 10.
Yeddyurappa said to have claimed in the petition that FIR was registered owing to political vendetta and malafide intention.
The ACB works under the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms which is directly in the control of the Chief Minister who is using it to target opposition leaders. Hence, the ACB is more or less a po litical institution, he claimed.
He also contended that the complainant Dr Aiyappa is neither land owner nor a beneficiary. In fact, the preliminary notification was issued on December 31, 2008 for acquisition of land for formation of the Dr Shivaram Karanth Layout.
This was challenged before High Court by land owners on the ground that BDA has failed to complete the acquisition proceedings within five years as per its rules. Based on this, a single-judge bench quashed the notification on November 26, 2014.
After two years, a writ appeal was filed against the single-judge bench order which was dismissed on April 28, 2017. Normally, one FIR is registered on one complaint, but already two FIRs are registered on one complaint. Every action of a public servant cannot be attributed as criminally culpable, Yeddyurappa said in his appeal. The petition is likely to come up for hearing next week.