NEW DELHI : In a breather to former Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa, the Supreme Court on Friday stayed a Karnataka HC order refusing to quash corruption charges against him in an illegal land denotification case of 2006-07.
A bench of CJI NV Ramana, Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli also issued a notice to the Karnataka government on a special leave petition filed by the senior BJP leader.
The FIR was filed by the Karnataka Lokayukta police on December 21, 2015 on a private complaint filed by Vasudeva Reddy under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The counsel appearing for Yeddiurappa, senior advocate KV Vishwanathan, submitted that the high court had quashed the same FIR which was also registered against Raghunath Vishwanath Deshpande on October 9, 2015.
He submitted that the investigation against the former chief minister in the same FIR is illegal and amounted to an abuse of the process of the court.
The single bench of Justice John Michael Cunha of the high court, while refusing to quash the FIR against Yediyurappa, had also pulled up the police for delaying the investigation against the former chief minister.