CBI court acquits Yeddyurappa, kin in bribery case

BENGALURU: State BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa has been acquitted by a special CBI court of the charge of bribe-taking by a trust run by his sons and son-in-law in return for favours to a mining company .

Yeddyurappa, his sons Raghavendra, an MLA, and Vijayendra and son-in-law Sohan Kumar and officials of Jindal Vijayanagar Steel were accused of taking ` . 40 crore through Prerana Trust and Swamy Vivekananda Samsthe in return for favours to the mining company , including licence.

Yeddyurappa is a trustee in the latter organisation.

The special court of Justice Dharmagoudar has acquitted all the accused in the case on grounds of lack of evidence. The CBI had filed a chargesheet accusing Yeddyurappa and others of criminal conspiracy , cheating, forgery and corruption.

“I always had faith in the judiciary and I have been proved right,“ Yeddyurappa said. His supporters celebrated even as the ruling Congress, expressed reservations over the verdict.

“This verdict is really big. The Congress and the JD (S) have no agenda to talk against him now. The Congress party president (Sonia Gandhi) and vice-president Rahul Gandhi are out on bail, but Yeddyurappa has been acquitted,“ BJP political strategist in Karnataka, Chennamallikarjuna Patil, said.

“This will boost the morale of BSY and that of party workers,“ he added. The state's Congress working president Dinesh Gundurao, said: “This verdict was expected the day the BJP announced that Yeddyurappa was its CM candidate.

“ SR Hiremath, the activist whose case brought out the entire mining scandal in Karnataka, said he would intervene legally , if the CBI did not contest this verdict.