NEW DELHI: In a breather for External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, the Supreme Court Friday stayed the probe by the Karnataka Lokayukta police into the de-reservation of 11,620 sq km of forest land for mining when he was chief minister during 1999-2004.

A bench of Justice Altamas Kabir and Justice Gyan Sudha Misra stayed the probe after senior counsel K.K. Venugopal told the court that a decision to de-reserve the forest land was taken by the cabinet and an individual could not be targeted for that.

Krishna has challenged the Karnataka High Court's Jan 20, 2012 order by which it declined to quash the FIR filed by the Lokayukta police against Krishna and others.

The court described as "premature" the filing of a private complaint based on the report of Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde (since retired) and the consequent ordering of probe.

"Don't you think it is premature step," Justice Misra asked Prashant Bhushan who argued in favour of probe by Lokayukta police as there was a prima facie case made out from the first report itself.

The court said that there could be no straightaway ordering of the probe unless it was examined prima facie. Since the supplementary investigation was yet to be done, "this filing of FIR was premature".

Bhushan told the court that supplementary report would not come as after the retirement of Justice Santosh Hegde, his successor has not been appointed so far. At this Venugopal said that Hegde had given the second report also wherein no names were mentioned.

The court observed that Hegde had himself said that his first report would be followed another report that would identify people who had contributed to the cabinet decision despite opposition by the minister concerned and his officials.

As Venugopal assailed entire proceedings in the wake of the private complaint, the court wondered "can a private complaint be filed on the basis of a report by a person who has no personal knowledge (of what he was complaining about)".

The FIR was registered by police on the order of Lokayukta court judge N.K. Sudhindra Rao directing a probe in the wake of private complaint by a Bangalore businessman T.J. Abraham.

Krishna and his two successors, N. Dharam Singh and H.D. Kumaraswamy and 11 serving and retired senior officials were named in the complaint.

When Venugopal raised the question of constitution that it was a collective decision and Krishna alone could not be targeted, Justice Kabir said that they will examine this aspect also.

Venugopal said that it was policy decision which could not be adjudicated by the Lokayuukta or the courts.

At this Justice Misra wanted to know if the cabinet and its decisions enjoyed "immunity" from scrutiny by the Lokayukta.

As Bhushan read out the extracts of the Lokayukta report to court, it asked him where was the name of Krishna in it. Bhushan said that as chief minister, Krishna presided over the meeting that took the decision.'

"The petitioner (Krishna) was the chief minister who presided over the cabinet meeting that took the decision of de-reserving the forest land that had no vegetation," Bhushan told the court.

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