The Karnataka High Court has quashed a private complaint filed under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 or simply the SC/ST Act, against Bharat Forge Chairman and Managing Director Babasaheb Neelkanth Kalyani, popularly known as Baba Kalyani, and two others, ruling that an unexplained 11-year delay in filing the complaint amounted to an abuse of the legal process.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna pronounced the order on November 4, 2026, allowing Criminal Petition No. 4657 of 2025 and the connected Writ Petition No. 7439 of 2020. The proceedings in P.C.R. No. 36 of 2018, pending before the LXX Additional City Civil and Sessions Judge and Special Judge (CCH-71), Bengaluru, were quashed as against the petitioners. The relief also extended to businessman Ashok Kheny and D. Ravisankar, who were named alongside Kalyani in the same complaint.
The origins of the dispute
The case stemmed from a land dispute linked to the NICE (Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises) road project in Bengaluru. The private complaint was filed in 2018 by S. Rajendran, S. Meganathan and S. Sampath, who said that their late father had been granted two acres of land in Kodigehalli village by the Karnataka government. They claimed that the land was taken over for the NICE project using forged grant records, that a building belonging to their educational society was demolished in March 2007, and that they were subjected to caste-based abuse during the incident.
Kalyani, who heads the Pune-based Kalyani Group, is a shareholder and former director of Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises Limited (NICEL), the company behind the NICE road project. He directly holds a 5 per cent stake in NICEL, while the Kalyani Group entity BF Utilities holds another 75 per cent. Kheny is also associated with the same company.
Baba Kayani, who made guns like ATAGS for India, faced an SC/ST Act case over a land dispute. Filed 11 years after the 2007 incident, the case has now been called a classic example of misuse by Karnataka HC. Why must misuse of this law be prevented? @pujaranaa explains. https://t.co/C41nu60p28
— OpIndia.com (@OpIndia_com) November 14, 2026
Baba Kayani, who made guns like ATAGS for India, faced an SC/ST Act case over a land dispute
The complainants approached the special court against Bharat Forge Chairman Baba Kalyani only in 2018, invoking provisions of the SC/ST Act and other Indian Penal Code offences, despite the said incident having occurred in March 2007. The police initially filed a closure report, but in February 2025, the special court directed further investigation under Section 156(3) of the CrPC, which prompted Kalyani and the other accused to move the High Court.
The court’s reasoning
Justice Nagaprasanna, in his order, came down heavily on the unexplained delay, observing that the entire complaint revolved around a single incident from 2007, and nothing had prevented the complainants from approaching the police at that time.
“This forms a classic illustration as to the misuse and abuse of the provisions of the Act. The narration in the complaint begins in the year 2007 and ends in 2018, but the incident remains only of 2007,” the Court said.
The bench further questioned, “If everything happened in the year 2007, why did the respondents wait to register the crime for 11 long years remains completely unexplained, even in the complaint. Therefore, the complaint is full of embellishments”.
The Court held that deliberate and unexplained delay could justify quashing criminal proceedings where the circumstances indicated an abuse of the process of law, relying on Supreme Court rulings that inordinate delay can itself support quashing under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act. “Even if the contents of the complaint are taken as true, it would not make out an offence, for it being marred by delay,” the judge ruled.
Arguments advanced
Senior Advocate Prabhuling K. Navadgi, instructed by advocate S.B. Mathapati, appeared for the petitioners and called the complaint a blatant abuse of the process of law, faulting the Special Court for ordering an investigation without examining whether any offence was made out.
Advocate Prabhugoud B. Tumbigi, appearing for the complainants, argued that delay alone would not vitiate the proceedings because fraud had been committed to take possession of lands that were never acquired for the project. The complainants maintained that delay by itself could not be a ground to terminate proceedings, particularly when land fraud and caste-based harassment were involved.
The High Court, however, was unconvinced, noting that the complaint contained several embellishments but offered no satisfactory account of the 11-year gap between the incident and the initiation of criminal action.
