HC rejects bail pleas of Katta,son

The Karnataka High Court cited the example of the Kanimozhi case in the Supreme Court in the 2G scam while rejecting the bail pleas.

The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday cited the example of the Kanimozhi case in the Supreme Court in the 2G scam while rejecting the bail pleas of the former Information Technology minister in the JD(S)-BJP government,Katta Subramanya Naidu,and his councillor son Katta Jagadeesh in a corruption and conspiracy case involving land acquisition for an IT park.

Justice V Jagannathan of the high court rejected the bail pleas of Naidu and his son in the estimated Rs 117 crore scam on account of prima facie evidence of wrongdoing as well as the seriousness of the alleged offense and the likelihood of evidence being tampered with.

The former minister and his son were arrested along with an official of a private IT company they had colluded with on August 8 after the anti-corruption police unit at the Karnataka Lokayukta filed a chargesheet against them and a special court designated for Lokayukta cases refused their bail pleas.

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Naidu and his son are accused of corruption,criminal conspiracy and cheating during the course of land acquisition for an IT park near Bangalore. Both are currently in judicial custody though Naidu has been admitted to a hospital on complaints of ill health.

The former minister is accused of buying large portions of land intended for an IT zone from local farmers at values ranging between Rs 4 to 5 lakh through force and criminal intimidation when he was the industries minister in 2006.