HC adjourns hearing on SM Krishna's petition to tomorrow

External Affairs Minister SM Krishna on Tuesday argued in the Karnataka High Court that no offence whatsoever was made out against him in the Lokayukta report on illegal mining which formed the basis of a private complaint accusing him of facilitating illegal mining during his tenure as state Chief Minister.

Uday Lalit, senior counsel representing Krishna, made the submission when the Minister's petition seeking quashing of the private complaint came up for hearing before Justice N Ananda.

As submissions by complainant TJ Abraham remained inconclusive, the Judge adjourned the hearing to Wednesday.

The high court had on December 15 stayed an FIR filed by Lokayukta Police against Krishna, who was the chief minister of the state from 1999 to 2004, under various sections of Prevention of Corruption Act, Forest Conservation Act, Forest Act and Minerals and Metals Regulation and Development Act.

In his arguments today, Lalit submitted that Lokayukta was a full-fledged authority with sufficient powers and a private complaint can be made to the Lokayukta itself.

"If the complainant discloses any criminality, the Lokyukta under section 14 of the Lokayukta Act can initiate prosecution," he said.

He also referred to the reports submitted by then Lokayukta Santosh Hegde on illegal mining, the preliminary and the final reports submitted on May 18, 2008 and July 27, 2011.

Lalit contended "if after three years of investigation there is no reference to my client (Krishna), there is no observation against the conduct of my client and nothing has been attributed against him by way of assessment by the Lokayukta, there cannot be anything against my client in the complaint which is purely based on the Lokayukta report and therefore there cannot be any investigation under section 156 (3) of the CrPC on the matter".

He said the Lokyukta had not suggested prosecution in the matter, he has adopted a neutral stand and left it to the state government to take a decision. In such circumstances, the investigation ordered into the matter almost amounts to investigating the Lokyakuta report and even going beyond the report.

Lalit said "One cannot have lack of confidence in the investigation conducted by the Lokayukta. Lokayukta did not deem it appropriate to invoke powers under section 14 of the Lokayukta Act".

He further contended that the complainant was "trying to invoke vicarious responsibility on his client just because he was the Chief Minister then".

Responding to the charge of dereservation of forest land for mining, the leading Supreme Court advocate argued that the decision taken by Krishna as the state chief Minister in 2003 was not an individual decision but a collective one by the cabinet in pursuance of the national mineral policy to utilise the mineral resources (in each state) by encouraging mining by the private sector.

"In fact, the state government received repeated letters from the Central government to initiate action on dereservation of forest land", Lalit pointed out.

He submitted that the cabinet which took the said decision ultimately became the victim of the lapses made by the officials.

Complainant Abraham, who argued for himself, sought dismissal of Krishna's petition, terming it as "premature" and submitted that the order of the lower court "is still in a preliminary stage and no process has been issued".

He argued it was "absolutely incorrect to say that the complaint does not make out an offence as there are many illegalities that have been committed as mentioned in the complaint which are contrary to the interest of the state".

The petition was filed by Krishna on December 9, a day after Lokayukta Police registered the FIR against him and also two other former Chief Ministers N Dharam Singh and HD Kumaraswamy and 11 officials.