Activist Snehamayi Krishna opposed before the Karnataka High Court the trial court’s acceptance of a ‘B Report’ (Closure Report) filed by Lokayukta police in the alleged MUDA land scam involving former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his family members.
Appearing for the petitioner, senior advocate Lakshmi Iyengar submitted before Justice M Nagapranna that the closure report runs into nearly 10,000 pages and that the trial court appeared to have conducted a ‘mini-trial’ at the stage of accepting the report. The petitioner argued that none of the pages contained material sufficient to justify acceptance of the report and that the findings were not reasoned enough to support closure at this stage.
The court permitted the petitioner to place the voluminous records in electronic form via a pen drive and directed the registry to secure the records from the concerned trial court through telephonic instructions. The Lokayukta informed the court that the final report itself is only a few pages, with the remainder consisting of voluminous annexures and documents.
The bench noted that notices to the respondents have been served. Advocate Aditya Narayan appeared for Respondent No. 5, Devaraju, and the memo of retirement filed by senior advocate Madhukar Deshpande for Respondent No. 2, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, was accepted by the court.
The matter has been listed for further hearing on August 24, with the court directing the respondents to file their objections by that date. Earlier, the court had issued notice to the respondents, including the former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, his wife BM Parvathy, his brother-in-law Mallikarjun Swamy, land owner Devaraju, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), and Lokayukta police.
On January 28, the trial court had accepted the B report filed by the Superintendent of Police, Karnataka Lokayukta, in the alleged scam. In the plea before the High Court, the petitioner seeks transfer of the investigation in Crime No. 11/2024 to an independent investigating agency and a direction to conduct a fresh investigation into the alleged offences. The petitioner further seeks that such investigation be monitored by a retired judge of the Karnataka High Court and that the agency submit a fresh report under Section 173 of the Cr.P.C. (now corresponding to Section 193 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita).
The petitioner’s plea is grounded in observations made by a coordinate bench in its September 2024 order in WP No. 22356/2024, titled Siddaramaiah AND State of Karnataka & Others, which upheld the grant of sanction by the State’s Governor under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 218 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita for investigation and prosecution against the former Chief Minister in the alleged Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) scam.
The petitioner also referred to ED communication dated November 30, 2024, and ED’s press release in January 2026, and contended that the trial court erred in accepting the B report against the former Chief Minister and his family while directing further investigation against other MUDA officials, despite the alleged crime arising from a single transaction.
The plea alleges that the trial court failed to appreciate that the case involves a ‘single, composite scheme’ of criminal conspiracy involving the former Chief Minister, his family, and delinquent officials behind the MUDA land scam. It further claims that the trial court disregarded communications and documents produced by the ED and applied the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt at an premature stage while closing the case.
The case is titled Snehamayi Krishna v. Superintendent of Police, Lokayuktha & Others, bearing Case No. CRL.P 4706/2026.