Bengaluru: The Karnataka High court has granted interim relief to BJP state president BS Yeddyurappa while hearing a plea filed by the former chief minister seeking quashing of the FIRs filed against him with the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) as well as a stay on the summons issued in the land denotification case.

The court has ruled out arrest of BS Yeddyurappa till August 28, when the case will come up for hearing next.

Since it would not have been possible to secure bail before Monday in case of an arrest Yeddyurappa had sought anticipatory bail.

Yeddyurappa has been accused of dropping 257 acres from the preliminary notification of the Shivarama Karanth layout bypassing the denotified committee approval, allegedly misusing his official position and ignoring the adverse reports submitted by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) when he was the CM. He will be represented by senior advocate DV Nagesh while former advocate general Ravi Verma Kumar is the state prosecutor.

After Yeddyurappa failed to appear before the ACB on August 19 requesting for a 10-day period to gather relevant details pertaining to the case, a second summon was issued asking him to appear on August 24. However, on August 19 he approached the high court seeking dismissal of the FIRs as well as a stay on the summons issued by the ACB.

Meanwhile, the BJP has accused the state government of resorting to political vendetta by misusing the ACB since Yeddyurappa is projected as the chief ministerial candidate.