Supreme Court relief for S M Krishna

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 the Karnataka chief minister during 1999-2004.

An apex court 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.

Referring to the report by former Lokayukta Santosh Hegde, the court said that it was to be followed by another supplementary report before anything could be done.