ORDER

Petitioners/accused Nos. 1, 18, 48 and 51 have knocked at the doors of this Court seeking quashment of final report/charge sheet in Charge Sheet No.21 of 2013 filed against petitioners 1 and 2/accused Nos. 1 and 18 now pending before the XLVI Additional City Civil and Sessions Court and Special Judge for CBI Cases at Bangalore in Spl.C.C.No.105 of 2014 and a supplementary charge sheet dated 02-12-2015 filed against petitioners 3 and 4/ accused Nos. 48 and 51 which is also now pending in Spl.C.C.No.105 of 2014 for offences punishable under Sections 120-B r/w 379, 409, 420, 434, 447, 468, 471 of the IPC and Section 13(2) r/w 13(1)(c)

and (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. In effect the petitioners seek complete obliteration of the proceedings against them.

2. Facts in brief, germane are as follows:-

The allegations against the petitioners spring from an order passed by the Apex Court in the case of SAMAJ PARIVARTHANA SAMUDAYA V. STATE OF KARNATAKA wherein the Apex Court by its order dated 07-09-2012 passed in W.P.(Civil) No.562 of 2009 directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (‘CBI’ for short) to investigate into the cases relating to illegal extraction of about 50.79 lakh MTs of iron ore from the forest areas of Karnataka during the period from 01-01-2009 and 31-05-2010. The illegal transportation of the said quantity of iron ore from the areas of extraction to Belekeri Port and from there illegal exportation to other countries form the fulcrum of the allegations before the Apex Court in the aforesaid case. The Apex Court directed constitution of a Central Empowered Committee (‘CEC’) to go into the veracity of allegations and submit its report. Accordingly, the CEC reports were placed before the Apex Court on 27-04-2012 and 05-09-2012. The Apex Court, then directs the CBI to investigate into the offence from the stage of registration of crime. It is then, the crime comes to be registered against petitioners 1 and 2/accused Nos. 1 and 18.

st The 1 petitioner/accused No.1 is the Managing Director of M/s Shree Mallikarjun Shipping Private Limited and petitioner st No.2/accused No.18 is the Company represented by the 1 petitioner.

3. The CBI conducts investigation and files a final report before the concerned Court on 16-12-2013 by filing charge sheet against petitioners 1 and 2/accused Nos. 1 and 18. In the same breath the concerned Court directed further investigation under Section 173(8) of the CrPC and the result of further investigation is arraigning of petitioners 3 and 4 as accused Nos. 48 and 51. Separate orders of taking cognizance are passed against petitioners 1 and 2 on the final report filed before the concerned Court and accordingly cognizance was taken against petitioners 3 and 4 on the supplementary final report filed before the concerned Court. They were for offences punishable under the afore-mentioned offences. The offences were an amalgam of offences under the IPC as well as offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act. After the concerned Court took cognizance of the offence, the petitioners have presented the subject petition calling in question the action of taking cognizance by the concerned Court for the afore-quoted offences. This Court, in terms of its order dated 07-08-2018 granted an interim order of stay only insofar as offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act. It was made clear that the offences under the IPC would be proceeded. Later this Court on 23-10-2019 granted stay of entire proceedings which is in operation even as on today.

4. Heard Sri Murthy D.Naik, learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioners and Sri P.Prasanna Kumar, learned Special Public Prosecutor appearing for the respondent.

5. The learned senior counsel Sri Murthy D.Naik would submit that the petitioners cannot be alleged of offences punishable under Sections 409, 420, 468 or 471 and 120B of the IPC as they are only traders in iron ore and not mine owners. The issue is with regard to payment of roy