The tough stand that Karnataka governor HR Bhardwaj took in permitting the prosecution of chief minister BS Yeddyurappa and home minister R Ashoka, had its legal roots in Madhya Pradesh.
The tough stand that Karnataka governor HR Bhardwaj took in permitting the prosecution of chief minister BS Yeddyurappa and home minister R Ashoka, had its legal roots in Madhya Pradesh.
A constitution bench of the Supreme Court, comprising five eminent judges including Lokayukta justice N Santosh Hegde, had delivered a landmark judgment in November 2004 in a Bangalore-like land scam in which the then Digvijay Singh government was involved.
Then governor, Bhai Mahavir, a BJP nominee, had locked horns with Singh on this issue and had won the case, albeit a little late. The apex court had observed: “A governor of a state can accord sanction for prosecution of a minister for an illegal act even after the council of ministers has refused permission.”
The MP governor had given a similar sanction against two ministers — BR Yadav and Rajendra Kumar Singh — who were accused of allotting precious 7.5 acres of land belonging to Indore Development Authority (IDA) to a private party on nominal rates, breaking the policy and causing loss to the state exchequer.
Chief minister Digvijay Singh, now a powerful AICC general secretary, defended his colleagues and the MP cabinet, and refused to allow the prosecution of Singh and Yadav.
A Congress leader from Indore, Kewal Yadav (former director IDA), had complained to the Lokyaukta of the irregularity in allotment of the said land. Lokyaukta, justice Faizanuddin, in his inquiry, found the two ministers guilty in 1998 and recommended the case to the governor for prosecution. The governor allowed prosecution under Section 197 of CrPC.
But the two ministers quickly challenged the governor’s order and sought to get it stayed by the Jabalpur high court. The single bench there held that the “governor could not act contrary to the ‘aid and advice’ of the council of ministers’.
In the long drawn battle that ensued, the Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta moved the SC where the constitution bench ruled in favour of governor Mahavir. Justice Variava, writing for the bench, said: “Democracy itself will be at stake if the government refuses to accord sanction for prosecution against ministers in matters where prima facie a clear case for prosecution was made out.”
He had further said, “It would then lead to a situation where people in power may break law with impunity safe in knowledge, that they will not be prosecuted as the requisite sanction (for prosecution) will not be granted.”
However, when the verdict was announced, the Digvijay government had been swept out of power and BJP was ruling the state and the two ministers could not be punished.
Advocate Dalal said that the same verdict applies in case of the ongoing Karnataka case where apparently, governor Bhardwaj is right in granting prosecution, in the light of the 2004 verdict. In MP the case was between a Congress CM and a BJP-backed governor, while in Karnataka, it is the other way round.
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