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Karnataka Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot has sanctioned prosecution against state chief minister and Congress leader Siddaramaiah over allegations in connection with the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment ‘scam’, sources said.

Gehlot has sanctioned the prosecution under section 17 of Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 18 of Bharat Nyaya Sanhita.

Governor Geholt in his prosecution sanction order mentioned that prima facie satisfied that allegations and supporting material discolose commission of offences.

As per the information, the chief minister’s legal team is likely to challenge the order before Karnataka High Court on Saturday. Siddaramaiah would likely approach the high court challenging the reasoning given in the order arguing that the Governor has acted in haste and passed the order.

Karnataka home minister G Parameshwara hit out at the BJP and assured support to the chief minister. “It is clear through this move that there was pressure from the Center on the Governor. Central government has misused the Governor office. The question of CM resignation will not arise now. We are all with Siddaramaiah,” he said.

Karnataka minister MB Patil also accused the BJP of destabiling the current Congress government with such actions.

“BJP in Centre is doing same thing in Karnataka, as they are doing in other non BJP Ruled states. Nothing is related to Karnataka CM, this was a MUDA mistake, nothing is linked with CM. He never asked anything about this, all this happened when there was BJP government. Governor is working on behalf of Centre, this is attempt to save HD Kumaraswamy. We will take this to court and the court will give justice to us. We will go to people of Karnataka, and will tell them that how BJP is trying to destabilise current govt,” he said.

Congress leader Priyank Kharge also hit out at the BJP-led central government and said that Raj Bhavan is being misused as the BJP’s tool to undermine a democratically elected government.

“The Karnataka Governor’s decision to sanction the prosecution of CM @siddaramaiah in the MUDA case has been orchestrated by the Central Government. Raj Bhavan is being misused as the BJP’s tool to undermine a democratically elected government. The Constitutional head of the State is sparking a constitutional crisis to appease his political masters. The Central Government may throw its full weight behind this, but we stand firm with the Constitution on our side. #SatyamevaJayate,” he said.

The Governor had earlier issued a show cause notice to the CM asking why permission should not be given to prosecute him. In reply, the Karnataka cabinet “strongly recommended” that the governor withdraw the notice issued to the chief minister.

The Governor shoot down the cabinets advise, and said, “it would then lead to situation where people on power break the law with impunity knowing that requisite sanction won’t be granted.”

Meanwhile, the BJP has demanded the resignation of the chief minister. Party leader BY Vijayendra said Siddaramaiah should resign in the back drop of Governor providing prosecution sanction, and make way for impartial probe.

Earlier on Tuesday, a special court adjourned the hearing of two private complaints against Siddaramaiah to August 20 and 21.

Siddaramaiah had termed the allegations as baseless and accused the opposition BJP and JD(S) of trying to tarnish his image by levelling false allegations. He said that he will not be cowed down by such things.

He asserted that he will fight against the charges both politically and legally, and will expose opposition leaders H D Kumaraswamy, B S Yediyurappa, B Y Vijayendra and Leader of Opposition in Assembly R Ashoka among others, and the scams in which they are allegedly involved, and take action against them based on inquiry reports.

“We (Congress) organised the Janandolana conventions against their (opposition) padayatre. We have told the people that they are lying, they are doing the padayatre (foot march) with false allegations. They are trying to create a black mark on Siddaramaiah’s image. They are trying to dislodge this government that has come to power with the blessings of the people,” Siddaramaiah said.

WHAT IS MUDA SCAM?

In the MUDA ‘scam’, it is alleged that compensatory sites were allotted to Siddaramaiah’s wife Parvathi in an upmarket area in Mysuru, which had higher property value as compared to the location of her land which had been “acquired” by the MUDA.

The MUDA had allotted plots to Parvathi under a 50:50 ratio scheme in lieu of 3.16 acres of her land, where MUDA developed a residential layout. Under the controversial scheme, MUDA allotted 50 per cent of developed land to the land losers in lieu of undeveloped land acquired from them for forming residential layouts.

Opposition and some activists have also claimed that the Parvathi had no legal title over 3.16 acres of land.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside the Calcutta High Court order asking adolescent girls to control their sexual urges.

A Bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan said it has also explained in detail on how courts should write judgments.

The verdict came in a suo motu case initiated in the wake of a Calcutta High Court ruling that had called for adolescent girls to "control" their sexual urges instead of "giving in to two minutes of pleasure".

It had sparked controversy since it proposed a 'duty/obligation based approach' for teenagers, and suggested that adolescent females and males have different duties.

The Supreme Court had taken suo motu coginzance of the same in December 2023, opining that the comments made by the High Court were sweeping, objectionable, irrelevant, preachy and unwarranted.

The top court had also remarked that the High Court ruling sent wrong signals.

In the case before High Court, the  division bench of Justices Chitta Ranjan Dash and Partha Sarathi Sen had acquitted a youth, who was convicted for raping a minor girl, with whom he had a 'romantic affair'.

Today, the top court restored the conviction and said a committee of experts will take a call on his sentence.

Senior Advocates Madhavi Divan and Liz Mathew were amici curiae in the matter.

Senior Advocate Huzefa Ahmadi and advocate Astha Sharma appeared for State of West Bengal, which also had filed an appeal against the High Court verdict.

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 22: The tension that surfaced in the airport here on Thursday morning ended after a thorough search on the Mumbai-Thiruvananthapuram Air India flight found nothing dangerous, except a note written on a tissue paper in a toilet of the plane, which said 'bomb'.

Earlier, an Air India flight from Mumbai made an emergency landing following a bomb threat. The incident took place around 7.30 a.m. when the pilot of the Air India flight informed the airport authorities about the threat. As soon as the message of the threat was received, the airport went into full alert mode. The bomb squad and all other emergency services were quickly positioned.

After the plane made a touchdown around 8 a.m., it was moved to an isolated area of the airport and all the 136 passengers, including the crew on board, were evacuated safely. Bomb experts entered the plane and carried out a thorough check.

Initially, the authorities were perplexed about how the bomb threat was known to the pilot.

With the Kerala Police taking over the probe, it surfaced that a handwritten note on a tissue paper was recovered from the washroom of the aircraft when the flight was on its journey to here.

On the note was written about the presence of a bomb and that was how the pilot came to know about it, said officials.

Further investigation was on to find out who had written the note, and if there was any motive. Further details were awaited as the probe was ongoing.

The authorities said that the airport was functioning normally.

The entire baggage and the cargo on the Air India aircraft were screened. The passengers have not come out to the arrival lounge of the airport.

The police probe team after getting the list of passengers, spoke to them and the crew also, as the first step of their investigation as the note was recovered from the plane toilet.

The preliminary impression of the police is that chances are high that the note could have been put during the course of the flight.