In a major development to the alleged illegal mining case, the Supreme Court on Wednesday granted relief to former Karnakata chief minister SM Krishna and asked the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to file a report within three months.
The apex court has further asked the SIT team of the Karnataka Police to look into allegations against two ex-CMs, N Dharam Singh and H D Kumaraswamy in the iron ore mining case.
A social activist TJ Abraham had alleged the politicians had connived with bureaucrats to allow private businesses move into a huge tract of forest land in Bellay for iron ore mining. These relaxations were illegal and violated the rules, he had alleged.
Krishna, who recently quit the Congress to join the BJP in Karnataka, had approached the Supreme Court in 2011 after the Karnataka police named him and 10 others including the two former chief ministers. He was the Foreign Affairs Minister in the UPA government.
The Supreme Court had stayed the probe against Krishna for de-reserving the forest blocks for mining when he was chief minister during 1999-2004.
