The Supreme Court on Monday stayed a Karnataka High Court order that asked a special court last month to reinstate a 2012 land denotification case against Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, Bar and Bench reported.

The Karnataka High Court order, issued last month, had come after a sessions court dropped the case in 2016.

Activist Alam Pasha, who had filed the original case in 2012, had filed for reinstatement of the case against Yediyurappa, former minister Katta Subramanya Naidu and others. Yediyurappa and Naidu are accused of using their positions to allow the release of more than 24 acres of government-acquired land in north Bengaluru to private persons, leading to a loss to the state exchequer.

In his petition, Pasha had submitted that the sessions court had wrongly dropped the case in 2016 by citing a closure report filed by the police. The Lokayukta police had filed a report after conducting an investigation and dropped the cases against nine people as they could not collect any evidence against them. They had, however, filed a chargesheet against Yediyurappa and Naidu, Pasha said in his plea.

The High Court had then directed a special court to take note of the allegations and proceed on the basis of the chargesheet filed by the Lokayukta police.

However, Yediyurappa moved the Supreme Court, challenging the High Court’s decision. In Monday’s proceedings, his counsel Senior Advocate KV Viswanathan sought an interim decision on the matter from the Supreme Court. He argued that if the Supreme Court does not put a stay on the High Court order, the trial court will proceed on the matter, Bar and Bench reported.

A bench of Chief Justice of India SA Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian then stayed the High Court order, providing interim relief to Yediyurappa.