STATE OF KARNATAKA Vs. ARUN KUMAR AGARWAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted in SLP(C) Nos. 5883/98, 6016/98 and No. 6012/98.

(2.) Writ petition was filed in the High Court of Karnataka by Arun Kumar Agarwal and S. K. Kantha seeking for investigation by appropriate agencies into the various allegations made by them and to initiate criminal proceedings against the guilty persons as per law. It was also prayed to set aside the power project entered by Karnataka Electricity Board (KEB) with Mangalore Power Corporation (MPC) and re-allot the power project through an open bidding process. The High Court by an order made on February 27, 1998 granted some of the reliefs sought for in the writ petition. Against this order, the petitioners in the writ petition as well as the respondents have come in two sets of appeals. The High Court formulated 13 points (though noted as 14 in the order under appeal) which appeared to it to be of suspicious nature leading to issue of the following directions :

(3.) The High Court in pararaph 45 of its judgment observed that as to whether the facts alleged, the documents produced and the circumstances brought to the notice of the Court are prima facie sufficient to warrant a further probe, enquiry or investigation. Having said that, it sets out a few facts which are stated to be either admitted or proved facts, but the appellants challenged the correctness of the same. At paragraph 48 the High Court stated that some of the circumstances relied upon by the writ petitioners in support of their submissions have vehemently been opposed and those circumstances are referred to for the purposes of ascertaining as to whether any case is made out for the purposes of further probe, enquiry or not. The High Court also notices that the allegations and counter-allegations made in the pleadings and that the writ petitioners have not referred to any individual or group of individuals who could be alleged to be the beneficiaries of an amount of 191 Million Hong Kong Dollars but it may be desirable to ascertain as to whether actually any part of that amount was spent in India or not. It is also to ascertain even if the aforesaid amount was allegedly incurred with respect to the projects being carried on by the appellant outside Hong Kong but not in India as to whether actually such amount was incurred in any other country or the entry which was subsequently written off is a camaflouge to hide the alleged kickbacks and bribes paid for the alleged favours shown to M/s. Cognetrix in connection with the setting up of thermal power plant of 1000 MW capacity at Mangalore.