Petitions filed by officers in illegal mining case dismissed

Bangalore: Karnataka High Court on Wednesday dismissed petitions filed by three officers seeking quashing of a private complaint against them over alleged illegal mining in which three former Karnataka Chief Ministers, including S M Krishna have been named.

Dismissing the pleas filed by D S Ashwath, retired IAS officer and former Managing Director of M/S Mysore Minerals Limited (MML) and Dy General Managers of MML, K Srinivas and Shankaralingaiah, Justice N Ananda observed that the officers were part and parcel of the decision making (according mining licences) process.

Earlier, the complainant T J Abraham pointed out that in the Lokayukta Report on illegal mining, on which his complaint was based, these officers had not only been named but the loss caused to the exchequer by their actions had also been quantified. He, therefore, sought dismissal of the petitions terming these as "non maintainable".

The officers, however, argued that they were only taking orders from government and therefore not responsible for the decisions taken.

Eleven bureaucrats had been named in the complaint filed by Abraham, a social activist, in December last, of which seven had filed petitions seeking quashing of the complaint.While arguments in the three petitions were concluded, arguments on others are still pending.

On January 27, the Supreme Court had stayed the Lokayukta proceedings against External Affairs Minister Krishna on a similar plea, saying the proceedings were 'premature'.

On a direction from the Lokayukta court, while allowing the private complaint, Lokayukta Police had registered an FIR on December 8 last year against Krishna, who was state chief minister from 1999 to 2004,and his successors N Dharam Singh, JDS chief H D Kumaraswamy and 11 officials.

The complainant alleged that Krishna and others facilitated illegal mining for pecuniary gains.