High Court stays Lokayukta investigation against NICE

The New Indian Express: Bangalore: Friday, June 28, 2013.

The Karnataka High Court (HC) on Thursday allowed writ petitions filed by Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) to stay the Lokayukta investigation against the company. It has quashed the complaint against NICE lodged by RTI activist T J Abraham.

While allowing the petition, Justice Anand Byra Reddy observed, “The above circumstances are sufficient to grant the prayer of the petitioner and consequently the petitions are allowed as prayed for.”

Justice Reddy said the court cannot readily accept the complainant’s contention that relevant documents were not available in public domain and he only got access to them after the Right To Information Act (RTI) in 2005.

“No explanation as to the period of the complainant’s research has been adduced as the RTI has been in force since October 2005. The ground that the new material gathered by the petition would require a relook at the decision-making process of the state on the account of it being tainted with criminality was clearly barred by delay and laches (unreasonable delay that prejudices the opposing party),” he said.

Further, he said: “Hence the exercise of the complainant borders on abuse of the process of court in approaching the criminal court as an alternative.”

Abraham had filed a complaint with the Lokayukta against NICE, its managing director Ashok Kheny, former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, former chief minister J H Patel and 125 others, accusing them of fraudulently allotting land to NICE for Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor on August 27, 2012.

The Lokayukta court had ordered an inquiry and the Lokayukta police were inquiring into the issue. NICE and Kheny filed writ petitions seeking stay against the inquiry and quashing of the private complaint.