Ahead of the assembly bypolls in the state, Congress MLA Satish Sail has been sent to a seven-year prison in connection with Belekeri iron ore disappearance case.
A Bengaluru special court on Saturday ordered seven-year imprisonment to Congress MLA from Karwar and six more people in the case of illegal export of iron ore from the Belekeri port.
Following the verdict, Sail’s status as an MLA was revoked under Article 190(3) of the Constitution, which mandates disqualification for any sentence exceeding two years. Following the sentencing the MLA and other accused have been taken into custody by the CBI.
Besides Sail, the other convicted people included Chetan Shah, managing director of Ashapura Minechem Ltd.; KV Nagaraj and KVN Govindaraj, affiliated with Swastik Steels (Hospet) Pvt. Ltd.; K. Mahesh Kumar, a partner in Sri Lakshmi Venkateshwara Minerals; and Prem Chand Garg, managing director of Lal Mahal Ltd. Companies such as PJS Overseas Ltd. and ILC Industries Ltd. were also found guilty.
The court handed down the sentences under Section 420 of the IPC (cheating) in six cases, five-year terms for criminal conspiracy under Section 120B, and three-year terms for theft under Section 379, along with fines.
“The court said that sentences imposed for different offences in the case would run concurrently and the convicts are entitled to set off the period that they had spent as undertrial prisoners earlier in each case. However, the convicts have the option to move the special court and the high court with a plea to treat all the sentences imposed in six different cases to run concurrently,” said an official in the know of the development.
{{/usCountry}}“The court said that sentences imposed for different offences in the case would run concurrently and the convicts are entitled to set off the period that they had spent as undertrial prisoners earlier in each case. However, the convicts have the option to move the special court and the high court with a plea to treat all the sentences imposed in six different cases to run concurrently,” said an official in the know of the development.
{{/usCountry}}The Belekeri iron ore case first emerged following a 2010 Karnataka Lokayukta investigation, which uncovered the unauthorised transport of around 800,000 tons of iron ore from Bellary to Belekeri port without proper permits. These findings prompted the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to file multiple charge sheets, alleging the illegal excavation and export of approximately 5 million metric tonnes of iron ore valued at ₹2,500 crore. The CBI’s investigation implicated multiple officials and private entities, asserting that local port authorities, along with Mallikarjun Shipping, facilitated the unauthorized exports.
Mallikarjun Shipping, owned by Sail, played a significant role in the operation at Belekeri port. Sail, who initially won his Karwar seat as an independent candidate in 2013 before joining Congress, secured re-election in 2023.
The case’s prominence grew after the Supreme Court, in 2012, directed the CBI to investigate the illegal extraction of about 5.079 MT of iron ore from the forest areas of Karnataka focusing on events between 2009 and 2010.