Lack of majority forced Yeddyurappa to quit: BJP
Bengaluru, May 19: The BJP on Saturday admitted that its Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa resigned as his government did not have the numbers for simple majority to win the trust vote in a hung Assembly.
"As we did not have the numbers (112) required to win the trust vote, our party leaders in Bengaluru and Delhi decided that Yeddyurappa should resign," Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesman Vamanachrya told IANS here.
BJP leaders and Union Ministers Prakash Javadekar, Dharmendra Pradhan and Ananth Kumar were regularly in touch with the party's leadership in Delhi throughout the Assembly proceedings, he said.
"By 3 p.m., we have communicated to our leaders that we lost the battle and a decision was taken that Yeddyurappa has to resign. His resignation speech was prepared," added Vamanacharya.
He also denied allegations of the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) that the BJP had indulged in horse-trading.
"These allegations are being levelled against us since the election results came on Tuesday. If we would have gone for horse-trading, getting seven legislators on board was not a huge task. But we did not try and we stuck to honest politics like we always do," Vamanacharya said.
Yeddyurappa, 75, who announced his resignation on the floor of the House before the trust vote, drove to Raj Bhavan and submitted his resignation to Governor Vajubhai R. Vala.
The BJP won 104 seats in the May 12 assembly election held in 222 of the state's 224 constituencies, falling eight short of a simple majority.
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BharatPe fraud case: Delhi HC quashes lookout circular against Ashneer Grover, wife
New Delhi, Nov 12: The Delhi High Court has ordered cancellation of a lookout circular (LOC) issued against Ashneer Grover, the former MD of payment app BharatPe, and his wife Madhuri Jain Grover, noting that the FIR lodged against them over allegations of cheating and forgery has already been quashed.
Justice Sanjeev Narula passed the order on Monday after the court was informed that another bench of the high court quashed the FIR on the same day.
The FIR was quashed by Justice Chandra Dhari Singh after considering a plea moved by the Grovers stating that they have arrived at a settlement with the fintech company.
In his order, Justice Narula said, "Although the copy of the order (quashing the FIR) is not available as of now, the aforenoted fact is not disputed by the counsel for the parties.
"In light of the fact that the underlying FIR has been quashed, the LOC issued by respondent No. 3 (Bureau of Immigration), in the opinion of the court, will not survive."
The LOC was issued by the Bureau of Immigration at the instance of Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in view of the investigation against the Grovers in the cheating and forgery FIR.
The court was hearing a plea moved by Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain Grover seeking quashing of the LOC issued against them in connection with the investigation into the cheating and forgery case.
"Accordingly, the present petitions are disposed of with a direction to the respondents to cancel the LOC against the petitioners in their records," the court noted.
Earlier, the Grovers claimed that they were informed about the LOC for the first time when they were detained at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here on November 16, 2023, while they were scheduled to travel to the US.
After being detained, they were informed that the LOC was operational from November 6, 2023.
In May last year, the EOW filed an FIR against Grover, his wife Madhuri, and others under eight sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonesty), 467 and 468 (forgery), and 471 (using forged documents as genuine) for an alleged Rs 81 crore fraud after a complaint was lodged by BhartPe, the fintech unicorn.
In its complaint, BharatPe alleged that Grover and his family caused damages to the tune of Rs 81.3 crore through illegitimate payments to bogus human resource consultants, inflated and undue payments through pass-through vendors connected to the accused, sham transactions in input tax credit and payment of penalty to GST authorities, illegal payment to travel agencies, forged invoices by Madhuri, and destruction of evidence.
Madhuri was the head of controls at BharatPe before she was fired in 2022 after a forensic audit revealed several irregularities.
Subsequently, Grover resigned as the chief executive officer of the fintech firm in March 2022.
