The Vidhana Soudha Police filed an FIR against 7 MLCs of the Congress and the JD(S), along with a former independent MLC, for submitting false information for the 2016 Bengaluru mayoral election. The MLCs are also booked for submitting fake bills.
A special court directed the Vidhana Soudha police to take cognisance of the case and initiate action against the MLCs following a petition filed by R J H Ramanna from Raichur, the state president of the Republic Party of India.
The FIR names R B Timmapur, Allum Veerabhadrappa, Raghu Achar, N S Boseraju and S Ravi of the Congress, along with the JD(S)’ C R Manohar, Appaji Gowda, and M D Lakshminarayana, a former independent MLC.
Police booked them under IPC Sections 420 (cheating), 177 (furnishing false information), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object) and the Representation of the People Act.
Speaking to DH, the police said that they had sought documents from the petitioner for further investigation. After the court’s direction, a few MLCs had approached the court seeking anticipatory bail and some had even approached senior police officers. “Since this is the first case under the Representation of People Act in the state, we had sought legal opinion from experts, and we will issue notices after examining the documents in the case,” the police said.
In 2017, a report submitted by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) stated that the MLCs submitted false information for the mayoral vote claiming they are Bengaluru residents, but at the same time submitted fake travel bills from their native place to claim travel allowances worth Rs 30.5 lakh.
When the CEO submitted a report to the then legislative council Chairman DH Shankaramurthy, he had then said that the members have committed a crime, but he had no power to take any action.
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