Satish Sail moves Karnataka High Court challenging his conviction in illegal export of seized iron ore from Belekeri port  

High Court of Karnataka orders notice to CBI in appeal against MLA's conviction for illegal iron ore export.

The High Court of Karnataka on Thursday ordered the issue of notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on the petitions filed by MLA for Karwar Satish Krishna Sail, who has challenged the trial court’s judgment of convicting him in six separate cases of illegal export of seized iron ore from Belekeri port in Karwar during 2009-10 and sentencing him to rigorous imprisonment of seven years each in each of these cases.

Mr. Sail and a few other convicts, who have also filed appeals against their conviction, have pleaded with the court to suspend their sentence and enlarge them on bail during the pendency of their appeals.

Justice M. Nagaprasanna, before whom the appeals came up for hearing, adjourned the appeals till November 13 to hear the arguments on their plea seeking interim order of suspension of sentence and grant of bail.

The Special Court of Sessions for criminal cases against former and present MPs and MLAs on October 24 convicted Mr. Sail in his capacity as the managing director of Shree Mallikarjuna Shipping Pvt. Ltd. (SMSPL), six other individuals, and seven private companies based on the chargesheet filed by the CBI, which had probed the case on the Supreme Court’s direction. The Special Court on October 26 pronounced the sentence, awarding seven years of imprisonment to each of the convicted individuals in each of the six cases.

The materials clearly point out the act of a serious fraud played upon the State exchequer, which has been successfully proved beyond reasonable doubt by the prosecution, the Special Court had said in its judgment while appreciating the efforts of CBI’s Senior Public Prosecutor K.S. Hema and her team in effectively conducting the trial.

Mr. Sail was found guilty of exporting to China a total of 1.43 lakh tonnes of seized iron ore, which were stored in the port yard after they were seized from six companies, through his company SMSPL and caused a loss of around ₹42.6 crore to the State exchequer. This 1.43 lakh tonnes of exported ore was part of the over 50 lakh tonnes of iron ore exported illegally from that port without valid permit.

The special court had also imposed a total fine of around ₹44.09 crore jointly on the convicted individuals and seven companies. Mr. Sail, a Congress MLA, has to personally pay around ₹9.26 crore as a fine apart from paying another around ₹9.26 crore as a fine on behalf of his company.