Apex court refers BSY appeal to larger bench
Citing judicial propriety, a bench of justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra deferred its verdict on Yediyurappa’s plea.
New Delhi The Supreme Court on Monday deferred its judgment on a plea by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa to quash a land denotification case from 2012 as it referred the matter to a larger bench where a similar legal issue is pending consideration.
Citing judicial propriety, a bench of justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra deferred its verdict on Yediyurappa’s plea against an order of the Karnataka high court reviving a corruption case against him when it found that a matter with similar legal issues was referred to a larger bench.
“We had reserved the matter for judgment while framing the aforesaid questions for consideration (on April 4). However, while preparing the judgment, on the issue relating to the applicability of Aiyappa’s decision we came across an order of this court dated April 16, 2024 passed by a coordinate bench of this court in SLP (Crl),” the bench said.
It added: “As for maintaining judicial discipline a coordinate bench of this court has refrained from proceeding further in deciding the underlying issue, which is under reference to a larger bench, we deem it appropriate to tag these petitions with the referred matter.”
The case stems from an allegation against Yediyurappa that during his tenure as chief minister, he de-notified 26 acres land acquired by government for construction of houses for low income and middle income families. This project was part of an upcoming IT park project at Devanahalli Industrial Park in Bengaluru Rural district. The complaint against him was filed by A Alam Pasha, following which a local court ordered investigation by the state Lokayukta in May 2012.
