[1]Contrary to reports that former Lokayukta Justice N. Santosh Hegde on Tuesday was disassociating himself from Team Anna, Justice Hegde made it clear to this newspaper that he was only refusing to be “a party to Team Anna’s allegations against minister for external affairs S.M. Krishna” as he had not yet seen the documents against the minister, but “on Team Anna’s allegations against Mr Krishna per se, I support it.”
Asked if that meant there was a rift with Team Anna, he said that in the past too he “had opposed Team Anna’s campaign in Hissar, Bhushan’s comments on Kashmir on plebiscite and the allegations against 15 ministers,” and reserved the right to differ with them if he did not agree with them.
On allegations against Mr Krishna, he said Mr Bhushan had explained the facts in the documents emailed to him, but he could not go along with it, as so far he had been unable to download the document.
He said: “During 2000-2004 (when Mr Krishna was CM) large tracts of forest land were de-reserved for mining.
I had indicted the then minister for Mines & Geology and then secretary to the department of Mines & Geology for alleged involvement in de-reservation of forests for illegal mining.
I am not aware of the so-called Cabinet note, which Mr Prashant Bhushan is now referring to, which was said to be signed by Mr Krishna for de-reserving 11,620 sq kms of forest land. There was no material to indict Mr Krishna.”
Justice Hegde said that the file (CI 16 MMM 2003) sought by the Lokayukta team, was not available when he conducted the inquiry.
But in an interesting twist though, the state government in its reply to the CEC last week insisted that “an area of 11620 sq kms was de-reserved vide government notification dated Feb 17, 2003 (when Mr Krishna was CM).
The original file pertaining to de-reserving the area has been with the office of Lokayukta since Feb. 9, 2010.’’
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[1] http://archive.asianage.com/untitled-146jpgcropdisplayjpg-193