Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court’s Divisional Bench has granted permission for the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to investigate the MUDA 50:50 sites allotment scam.

However, the probe will exclude former MUDA Commissioner Dr. D.B. Natesh while covering Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, his wife B.M. Parvathi, his brother-in-law B.M. Mallikarjuna Swamy and landowner J. Devaraju.

The Bench, comprising Chief Justice N.V. Anjaria and Justice K.V. Arvind, was hearing an ED plea seeking a stay on a Single-Judge Bench order that had quashed summons issued to Dr. Natesh.

The HC said, the issue of an interim stay is linked to the merits of the case, which has to be adjudicated after a full hearing of the case. However, it stated that the ED could carry out investigations against others involved in the case.

Materials and property that were seized by the ED but are not linked to the former MUDA Commissioner could be used to continue the investigations, the Court added.

On Jan. 27, in a ruling with significance in the ED’s money-laundering probe against Siddaramaiah, his wife and others, a Single-Judge Bench of the HC ruled that the agency’s probe against Natesh                                   was illegal.

Natesh is specifically accused of improperly allotting 928 plots on a 50:50 basis from MUDA, a move that purportedly benefited several individuals, including the Chief Minister’s wife. The contentious plot allocations occurred in 2021 in the Vijayanagar area of Mysuru.