BANGALORE: Giving relief to former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy and his MLA wife Anita, the High Court on Friday quashed proceedings of the Special Lokayukta Court against them based on a private complaint filed by an advocate Vinod Kumar.The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on the complainant for filing the case with “political motivation, malafide and mixed with malicious intent”. The fine will be distributed between Kumaraswamy and Anita.The complainant charged that Kumaraswamy had issued a licence to Janthakal Mining Company, violated norms and favoured Vishwa Bharathi House Building Co-operative Society by making bulk site allocations in return for favours.Hearing a petition by Kumaraswamy challenging the process, Justice V Jagannathan stated that the judicial process is a needless harassment and upheld the contention of counsel Hasmath Pasha that allegations against Kumaraswamy were politically motivated and reflected political vendetta.Pointing out that the complaint was filed with personal grudge, the court observed that the interference by the High Court under Section 482 was inevitable to meet the ends of justice.The court pointed out that the 33 documents submitted by the complainant were voluminous but were not certified. Pointing out that the correspondence of the political secretary of then chief minister and other authorities were not authorised, the High Court said the Lokayukta court should not have entertained the complaint.Mentioning the bulk allocation of sites to the housing society, the court upheld the contention of the counsel stating that the site purchased by Kumaraswamy was returned before allotment and allegations against him cannot be sustained.Observing that the land obtained by the accused was before he became chief minister, the court said the complaint was not entertainable under Section 197 of CrPC.
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