The legal options before Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, whose petition challenging the Governor’s approval for investigation against him in a site-allotment case was dismissed on Tuesday, include appealing before a division bench in the Karnataka High Court as well as filing a special leave petition in the Supreme Court.
Siddaramaiah faces a probe over alleged illegalities in allotting 14 sites to his wife in the prime location of Mysuru city by the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA).
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, the Karnataka chief minister said he won’t hesitate from any investigation and will discuss the matter with legal experts. He added: “On my writ petition, the High Court has given the verdict. The Governor gave sanction for prosecution and I questioned this in the High Court. After the arguments, the verdict was given today and I have seen that through the media. I am yet to read the whole judgement and I will give full details later.”
Congress insiders say the chief minister has sought legal opinion, but there is no move to ask Siddaramaiah to step down from his post.
“Let’s wait and see. There is an SIT that has been set up to probe the issue. There is also the option to appeal in higher courts. There is nothing that says the chief minister is guilty or any report that indicates so. This is a decision of the court which states investigate if there are any irregularities. Let’s see what it reveals,” said a senior Congress minister on the condition of anonymity.
Senior Congress ministers and leaders have expressed their support for Siddaramaiah, asserting that he has no role in the alleged illegalities.
Deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar said: “The chief minister is not at fault and he will emerge clean even after the investigation is conducted.”
Senior Congress leader Santosh Lad told News18: “All 136 MLAs are standing behind our chief minister. This is a clear conspiracy by the BJP to attack and unseat Siddaramaiah, but their plans will not succeed. The case is baseless, and investigations will prove it.”
Soon after Justice M Nagaprasanna dismissed Siddaramaiah’s petition seeking a stay on the sanction given by Karnataka Governor Thawarchand Gehlot in the MUDA case, the CM, Shivakumar, and all Congress MLAs gathered at the chief minister’s official residence, Kaveri, to discuss the next steps.
What are the options before Siddaramaiah?
Alok Prasanna Kumar, co-founder and lead of Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, outlined two legal options. “The first option is to file an intra-court appeal within Karnataka High Court and have a division bench hear the matter. The second option is to file a Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court,” said Prasanna, adding that the Supreme Court usually does not entertain SLPs if an alternative legal recourse is available.
“Most likely, he will go before the division bench and appeal,” the legal expert concluded.
According to the Karnataka High Court’s verdict, the Governor’s decision to grant permission for the investigation was independent and within his authority. This paves the way for the investigation to begin against Siddaramaiah.
The high court also rejected the plea to stay the verdict delivered on Tuesday and vacated its interim order, which had directed a special court to defer decisions on complaints against Siddaramaiah.
Earlier, the high court had granted temporary relief to Siddaramaiah by directing the special court in Bengaluru to defer further proceedings and refrain from taking any action based on the sanction granted by the Governor to complainants Abraham TJ of Bengaluru and Snehamayi Krishna of Mysuru.
The Congress government condemned the Governor, accusing him of “acting as a representative of the Central government, which is attempting to destabilise the state government by using the Governor”, Siddaramaiah said. He further remarked that while there were serious cases against Kumaraswamy, Jolle, Reddy, and Nirani, the Governor did not grant prosecution in those instances, but in Siddaramaiah’s case, he granted sanction even before a preliminary investigation was conducted.
Siddaramaiah’s assertive stance is supported by both the cabinet and the legislature party, with the central Congress leadership firmly backing him.
Siddaramaiah has consistently maintained that he had “no role whatsoever” in the transfer of 3.16 acres of land by his brother-in-law Mallikarjun Swamy to his wife BM Parvathi.
The chief minister did not attend three cabinet meetings held on August 1, August 8, and August 22 where the MUDA case was discussed. These meetings were chaired by Shivakumar.
During these meetings, the Cabinet “unanimously expressed solidarity” against the “illegal decision of the Governor to prosecute.” It was also stated that, apart from granting sanction, which was “entirely unconstitutional and illegal,” the Governor’s actions violated the Standard Operating Procedure issued by the Government of India for processing cases under Section 17(A) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Political analyst Sandeep Shastri said the image Siddaramaiah enjoyed of being corruption-free is now dented with this verdict by the HC.
“There will be no change of guard immediately in Karnataka as the Congress party will not want to indicate that they are changing the chief minister based on this development. However, one cannot rule out the possibility of a change in leadership in the near future,” Shastri told News18.