Karnataka Lokayukta corruption case: If government can’t stop him we will, says Justice Hegde

Bengaluru: In a scathing attack on Justice Lokayukta Y. Bhaskar Rao, former Lokayukta Justice N. Santosh Hegde charged that the Rao is liable to be booked under Section 109 of Indian Penal Code, which is abetment – for abetting his son (Ashwin Rao) to sit in Lokayukta office, next to his chamber and extort money from government officials. RTI activist S.R. Hiremath had confronted the Lokayukta himself in March this year bringing this issue to his notice, but the Lokayukta denied it.

Mr Hegde told Deccan Chronicle, “I don’t know which lobby within the government is working, but the government as a whole is inanimate, which is clear from the statements of the chief minister claiming he has no powers to order a CBI investigation. He has powers to direct CBI investigation into D.K. Ravi’s suicide case, single digit lottery case and at the beginning of this week, the home minister said they are ordering a CBI inquiry into the cricket betting case in Hubbali, while they have no power to order an investigation against an institution which is being ruined by this person (Y. Bhaskar Rao).”

The former Lokayukta said, “I get a feeling that the government is trying to protect the Lokayukta for what reasons I cannot say except guesses. No government was that cooperative as this government. Such serious blatant crimes being committed by the head of the institution’s son, and the Lokayukta police who registered an FIR, have brought in IPC sections of extortion, along with trespass, cheating, and other sections of prevention of corruption charges, and for such serious offences, one can’t imagine that the Lokayukta except for helping his son, there is no legal intention nor any other honest intention to it. Any government worth its salt should order an independent outside-the-state inquiry which will be only CBI.”

“It is a conspiracy I would call and I use the word ‘conspiracy’ because on June 26, when the Lokayukta police were investigating, Mr Rao referred the case to CCB with an ulterior motive. Unfortunately, that CCB police officer did not agree, and then Rao comes back and writes a letter on June 27 to the government asking to hold an inquiry. Then all of us said, now that the power has come to the chief minister, he can appoint the CBI. On June 28, Rao sends another letter asking to appoint SIT. SIT on that day did not have police powers, and the next day the government confers police powers to it. It is ridiculous, one man trying to save his son and another bunch of people trying to save their skin.

The Lokayukta under the jurisdiction of the Lokayukta Act is not a criminal jurisdiction, it has a jurisdiction to investigate certain doings of the government and government servants (relating to corruption), and not crimes such as extortion, cheating or abetment, which should be handled by the police department, Mr Hedge said.

The former Lokayukta also pointed out that in a Supreme Court order, neither the High Court nor the state government has powers to constitute an SIT to investigate a case. It’s only the Supreme Court that is empowered to order an SIT. “In the case of conflict of police versus lawyers two years ago, when the matter was being heard, a petition was moved in the SC when the government was thinking of constituting a SIT. I have been told that in the order it said neither the High Court nor the government have any powers to order an SIT, only the Supreme Court has the power and that’s why the SC cancelled the SIT made by the High Court and referred the matter to the CBI and that matter is still pending,” he said.

SIT to seek help from cyber cell to track calls

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) which is probing the in- house corruption in Lokayukta will shortly seek permission from the Director General of Police, Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for assistance from the cyber police station to track the calls and messages, which were made from the mobile numbers used by the scamsters to government officers, who were allegedly asked to pay hefty bribe to prevent Lokayukta raids.

“The SIT may even outsource forensic and cyber specialists from outside the State to prevent leakage of information and put at rest speculations, of bias and diluting the investigation,” said an official source. So far the SIT has not sought any permission. “They are busy with the documentation work, which will take time,” he added.

A vital and crucial part of SIT investigation would involve summoning of officers, who were called by the infamous coterie, which allegedly involved Lokayukta Justice Bhaskar Rao’s son Ashwin Y, Joint Commissioner (Public Relations), Syed Riyaz, V. Bhaskar alias 420 Bhaskar, Hotte Krishna, Krishna Rao and others to pay bribe. “Who will own up that they had paid bribe and how will the SIT quantify the extent of corruption?”

“They may be able to verify the calls made by the scamsters to the officers and track the person behind those, who made and received the calls using forensic and cyber expertise but to get to the bottom of the racket may be difficult. None of the phones were tapped. The Call Detail Records can only throw up the phone numbers. The conversations were not recorded,” the officer added.

What is shocking in the corruption scandal in the Lokayukta is that the extortionists not only reportedly misused the office and official residence of the Lokayukta to run the graft racket; public servants in the Lokayukta, who are allegedly part of the coterie also made calls from their official mobile numbers for the purpose. “They were sure that the racket will not get exposed hence they also made calls from their official numbers to government officers besides using SIM cards, which were bought on fake IDs,” said an officer on
condition of anonymity.

HC pulls up Ayukta cops over pending graft cases

The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday came down heavily on the Lokayukta police for the delay in dealing with corruption cases pending before them for several years. Expressing dissatisfaction over the delays, the court has directed the state government to respond. Following an earlier direction to the Lokayukta to furnish a list of pending cases, the corruption watchdog submitted to the court that 1,722 corruption cases were pending trial, 882 cases were being investigated and 105 cases were pending sanction from the government.

The court expressed concern that it a raid conducted by the Lokayukta in 1996 is still pending trial. “Is he still alive? Thank god if he is. It is a big thing if he is still alive,” court observed. The court learnt that the matter has been sent to the government to obtain sanction to prosecute the officer. The court observed, “Do you think he will not indulge in corruption again? Once he has tasted a sweet don’t you think he will refrain from it again? Don't you have sufficient powers to regulate? Is it humanely possible for the court to monitor regularly?”

The court has sought to know from the state in how many such cases, ‘B’ reports had been filed. It asked the state to respond and adjourned the matter to July 21.

Justice Rao defies deadline

As Wednesday was the deadline for the Lokayukta Y. Bhaskar Rao to resign, hundreds of lawyers and activists of several organisations staged a massive protest at the Anand Rao Circle before the Gandhi statue. Former Lokayukta N Santosh Hegde along with other activists, including A.T. Ramaswamy, H.S. Dore swamy and S.R. Hiremath took part in the protest.

The question the protestors had were:

• If the in-house corruption of Lokayukta is investigated by SIT constituted by the government, who is accountable to whom?
• Is there a strong lobby working within the government to prevent this case from going into CBI’s hands?
• Will the bureaucrats/government officials who had paid bribes to the accused to hush up cases go scot-free?
• Is the Lokayukta pulling strings on some corrupt politicians to act as lobbyists for them in the government?
• Is the government nervous that if the case is handed over to CBI then the names of some highly connected politicians and corrupt bureaucrats would get dragged into the investigation?