Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa today caught a reprieve from the Supreme Court as a 10-year-old case against him involving land allegations has been put on hold.
Mr Yediyurappa is accused of a role in the alleged illegal allotment of 24 acres of government land to private individuals at a huge loss to the taxpayer.
Last month, the Karnataka High Court had asked a special court to take note of the allegations and proceed on the basis of a charge sheet filed by the Lokayukta in 2012. The High Court had asked a special court to reinstate the case after it was dropped.
A Bengaluru man, A Alam Pasha, had questioned a 2016 order of the special court dropping the case against Mr Yediyurappa.
The Supreme Court today put the High Court order on hold.
The charge sheet by the Karnataka Lokayukta, or the corruption watchdog, accused Mr Yediyurappa of abusing his position to illegally cancel government acquisition of land for industrial purposes.
The land had been acquired by the state-run Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board in 2006 to set up a hardware park in Bengaluru.
But the land was denotified and released to private individuals.
The Lokayukta police had filed a report after investigating the allegations and dropped cases against nine people citing lack of evidence. But they had filed a charge sheet against Mr Yediyurappa and a former minister, Katta Subramanya Naidu.
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