Lokayukta Court here on Thursday 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 Bengaluru-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 (DySP) for investigating the matter against the 30.