Karnataka High Court refuses to quash illegal land regularisation case against former Belur MLA Lingesh KS

The Karnataka High Court has refused to quash a criminal case registered against former Janata Dal (Secular) MLA Lingesh KS and others for alleged illegality in regularising about 2,750 acres of government land worth ₹750 crore. .In an order passed on September 13, Justice M Nagaprasanna dismissed the petition filed by Lingesh and eight others, all of whom were members of regularisation committee known as Bagair Hukum Saguvali Samiti, for unauthorised cultivation on government land.Lingesh was the MLA from Belur constituency after he won the 2018 assembly elections.He and his co-accused were accused of having committed irregularities in sanctioning land to bagair hukum cultivators in Belur taluk of Hassan district in Karnataka.The land was allegedly regularised in favour of around 1,430 bogus beneficiaries between the years 2016 and 2022..A special court in Bengaluru recently ordered registration of a case against the MLA and a few officers following a complaint by an RTI activist.Following a complaint filed by an RTI activist in Kolar, a special magistrate’s court had directed the police to register an FIR against Lingesh and the others last year..While hearing Lingesh’s quashing petition however, the High Court went through a 2022 inquiry report by the Deputy Commissioner of Hassan that had said that most of the applications for regularisations that were approved between 2016 and 2022 were based on hand written ledger extracts prepared by local accountants and that most of the original applications and the land granted to them were missing from records.Justice Nagaprasanna noted that original applications and records were missing in 99% of the files presented to the Samithi during the period from 2016 to 2022..“The file processing is based on handwritten ledger extract, a copy prepared by the Village Accountants and the Sheristedars. The Tahsildar's spot inspection is indicative of the fact that the lands granted are not even present in the files, no inspection took place and in some cases records are destroyed to evade proof and lands were granted on fake family genealogical certificates notarized and have been granted to fake beneficiaries,” the High Court said.Hence, the Court concluded that Bagair Hukum Committee had prima facie acted in violation of law, Justice Nagaprasanna held..Senior Advocate Ashok Haranahalli and advocate Srinivas Rao SS appeared for Lingesh and the other petitioners.Additional SPP BN Jagadeesha appeared for Karnataka government.Advocate Umapathi S appeared for the complainant..[Read Order]