FIR filed against Deve Gowda, Krishna, BSY in NICE case

New Delhi, Nov 17: Lokayukta police has filed an FIR against three former Karnataka Chief Ministers H D Deve Gowda, S M Krishna and B S Yeddyurappa and 27 others on a complaint alleging irregularites in the Bangalore-Mysore Expressway project.

Executives of Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE), which had bagged the project, and several officials have also been named in the FIR, a top Lokayukta police official said on Saturday.

"Since the probe order given by the Lokayukta court last month was voluminous, it took some time to file the FIR", Additional Director General of Police (Lokayukta) H N Satyanarayana Rao told a news agency.

The accused, he said, have been booked under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and IPC.

The MoU for the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor project was signed in 1995 when Gowda, a former Prime Minister, was Chief Minister, between the state government and a consortium for the construction of a road of international standards between Bangalore and Mysore. Subsequently, a framework agreement signed.

On 25th October, the Lokyukta court had directed the ADGP Lokayukta to conduct investigation under 156(3) CrPC against all the accused in connection with the alleged corruption and illegalities in the contract awarded to NICE and its sister companies.

The case was filed by social activist and entrepreneur T J Abraham.

The other 75 accused of the total 105 have been excluded from investigation.

The Lokayukta court had in its nearly 500-page order further directed that a wing be constituted of not less than four Deputy Superintendents of Police (DySP) for investigating the matter against the accused.