Friday, November 25 2005 19:36 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: In a relief to Maharastra Governor S M Krishna, the Karnataka High Court today (Nov 25, 2005) expungedall the remarks passed by a single judge against him in connection with approval given to Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) for formation of 'Arkavathy' residential layout.

The division bench comprising Chief Justice N K Sodi and Justice N Kumar allowed an appeal filed by Krishna praying for expunging of remarks of Single Judge on April 15.

The Single judge while allowing a batch of writ petitions challenging acquisition of land in 16 villages to the extent of 2750 acres for formation of 28,600 sites had quashed the acquisition proceedings and passed certain remarks against S M Krishna stating that he had not obtained the cabinet approval for the project.

"No reason was stated as to what will happen if the matter is placed before the cabinet. It appears that the Chief Minister was very much eager to go ahead with the project giving a go-bye to all canons of law, well established mandatory procedures which require strict adherence and taking law into his own hands", the single judge had observed.

Krishna in his appeal had submitted that writ petitioners had not made any allegation against him in their pleadings or at the time of arguments and prayed for expunction of remarks.

The bench also upheld the land acquisition for the new layout and gave a go ahead to BDA to form the layout.

Following the quashing of the land acquisition by the single judge, the BDA had refunded initial deposit to even to the successful applicants.