Bengaluru: A complaint was filed against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and the Excise Department with the Anti Corruption Bureau, accusing massive corruption across the state in the past week over unexplained cancellation and subsequent unexplained attempt to renew liquor licenses.
The complaint was filed by Ravi Krishna Reddy, president, Lanchamukta Karnataka Nirmana Vedike (Forum for Building a Bribe-free Karnataka), on Monday and complaint copies were also sent to the Chief Justice of India and Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court.
The complainant stated that following the Supreme Court direction that liquor shops falling within 500 metres from highways should be closed, there has been massive corruption in the Excise Department.
“The liquor year in Karnataka is July 1 to June 30. All liquor licences in the state, without exception, expired on June 30.” Media reports consistently state that the Excise Department has refused to renew the liquor licences of 3,515 vendors. Accordingly, the media has widely reported the closure of these 395 vendors on July 1 on the ground of violation of the Supreme Court order.
“However, we have come across disturbing information that the department has already indulged in widespread corruption in this whole exercise. In a few cases, the department deliberately and wrongly refused to renew the liquor licences with the sole intention of subsequently extracting bribes from such vendors. In a very large number of cases, the department is now extracting huge sums of money from vendors to renew their licences - on the frivolous pretext that their violation of the Supreme Court's order did not occur or may not have occurred,” the complainant said.
“Under the Prevention of Corruption Act, a public officer owes a duty to explain why he would first refuse to renew a public licence - to only change the stand a few days later. Failure to explain in a case where the beneficiary benefits illegally would amount to corruption under Section 13(1)(d)(iii) of the Act. The department has to publicly explain the rationale behind this. This exercise also implicates the Deputy Commissioners of several districts, as they are authority to renew licences,” Mr Reddy said.
“The excise portfolio is held by the CM and therefore he has a duty to explain himself. If the ACB is of the view that it would not be able to entertain this complaint due to the fact that the CM himself heads the institution, the ACB cannot probe such corruption under its master's supervision. If that is the case, we would move the SC for an investigation by an independent body such as the CBI,” the complainant said.
