Probe ordered against S M Krishna, Deve Gowda, BSY in NICE case

Abraham had asked the court to attach the entire extent of 6,999 acres representing alleged fradulent execution of the toll road project

Lokayukta Court here today ordered a probe against three former Karnataka chief ministers — former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and B S Yeddyurappa, on a complaint alleging irregularities in the Bangalore-Mysore expressway project.

Judge N K Sudhindra Rao directed Additional DGP (Lokayukta) H N Sathyanarayana Rao to conduct the probe against the three and 27 others in connection with the alleged corruption and illegalities in the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project which was awarded to Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) and its sister companies. The complaint was filed by social activist and entrepreneur T J Abraham.

Others against whom the probe was ordered included NICE Managing Director Ashok Kheny, former Minister R V Deshpande, Congress leader D K Shivakumar, Public Works Minister C M Udasi, ICICI Bank Private Limited, industrialist Baba Kalyani, William Weld, former Governor of Massachusetts USA and Richard Hangan, another US national, who was part of the consortium with which the state had signed an MoU for the project.

Abraham had named 105 people in his complaint filed against NICE and its sister concerns also alleging illegal grabbing of farmers’ lands for the project. However, the judge ordered probe only against the 30, excluding the rest. Another former chief minister N Dharam Singh is among those excluded from the probe.

The court, in its nearly 500-page order, further directed that a wing be constituted comprising not less than four Deputy Superintendents of Police for investigating the matter against the 30.

The court did not allow the first application filed by Abraham seeking a separate order on Chapter 1, of the total eight chapters into which over the 150 page complaint was divided into. Chapter 1 contained the crux of the complaint.

On his other application, wherein Abraham had prayed the court to attach the entire extent of 6,999 acres representing alleged fraudulent execution of the toll road project, the court directed that only the land pertaining to Ajmera Builders be attached.

In another application Abraham had prayed the court to exercise the power conferred under section 4 of the Criminal Law Amendment Ordinance to direct the SP Lokayukta to attach the total toll “illegally” collected by NICE, NECEL (sister company of NICE) or through its agents at any time upon the peripheral road, more particularly identified in the Framework Agreement dated April 3, 1997 as modified from time to time.

On this, the court ordered “an ad interim attachment against amount equivalent to the toll collection for the preceding two years in all toll booths set up by NICE. It said the investigative agency shall seek the assistance of government agencies including the jurisdictional police to assess and calculate the number of vehicles plying on the toll road to ascertain proper quantification of toll collected” and held that further quantification from today, which would be “illegal”, would eventually revert back to the government.

The court further directed issue of show cause notice to NICE, NECEL and “other interested parties” which had been collecting the toll.

The case filed by Abraham dates back to 1995 when under the chief ministership of Deve Gowda an MoU was entered into between the state government and a four-member consortium comprising Ashok Kheny, William Weld and Richard Hangan (both from US) and Baba Kalyani for the construction of a connecting road of international standards between Bangalore and Mysore. Subsequently a framework agreement signed.