H.D. Kumaraswamy and his wife and lawmaker H..
BANGALORE: The Lokayukta court here Tuesday ordered former Karnataka chief minister
H.D. Kumaraswamy and his wife and lawmaker H.D.Anita to appear before
it September 5 in a case related to renewal of mining lease and allotment of
residential site by a housing society.Rejecting the anticipatory
bail applications of the duo, Additional City Civil Court and Sessions
Judge N.K Sudindhra Rao posted the case for hearing September 5 and told their
counsel Hazmath Basha to present them in the court in response to the
summons he issued Aug 8.Rao also functions as special Lokayukta (ombudsman) court for speedy trial of graft cases.Though
the trial court granted exemption for both of them from appearance
Tuesday on health grounds, the judge declined to give any relief for Sep
5 hearing as the Karnataka High Court also dismissed their anticipatory
bail applications later in the day.The summons was issued on a
complaint by city-based advocate Vinod Kumar who alleged that
Kumaraswamy renewed the mining lease of Jantakkal Enterprises Ltd
against rules and illegally allotted land to a housing society, which in
return gave his wife Anita a residential site in Bangalore.Kumaraswamy
was chief minister of the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S)-Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) coalition government in the state from February 2006 to
October 2007. Anita represents the Madhugiri assembly constituency in Tumkur district, about 70 km from Bangalore.Kumaraswamy,
who is the regional party's state unit president, is a member of the
Lok Sabha from Ramanagara, about 60 km from Bangalore.The
complaint was based on the final investigative report submitted by
former Lokayukta Justice (retd) N. Santosh Hegde to the state government
July 27 on the multi-crore mining scam.The report named Kumaraswamy for granting lease to two mining firms in violation of norms.The complaint also claimed that Kumaraswamy had given officials just two hours to grant the lease to the mining firm.The
ex-chief minister is alleged to have allotted 70 acres to
Vishwabharathi Housing Cooperative Society in Bangalore. The society in
return favoured his wife Anita with a 100ft x 150ft residential plot.In
a related development, Justice Keshavanarayan of the Karnataka High
Court rejected Kumaraswamy's application seeking stay on proceedings in
the Lokayukta court.
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