The committee has suggested to the House to reprimand Hussain Farooq, complainant in the corruption case, for tarnishing the MLA’s image by making ‘false allegations’ against him.
The committee’s report was tabled in the House on Monday. Karnataka Lokayukta police had arrested the MLA on charges of accepting a bribe of Rs 5 lakh from businessman Farooq in Legislators’ Home in January 2009.
After the Opposition parties demanded suspension of his membership in the Assembly on charges of misusing his office, the then speaker Jagadish Shettar constituted a committee under the chairmanship of K G Bopaiah.
The report said the committee served two notices to complainant Farooq to appear before the committee. But he did not turn up. Because he did not appear before the committee, there were no grounds to proceed with the investigation. The committee could not judge whether the MLA misused his office or not as there were no statements corresponding to the allegation made by the complainant.
Contempt of House
The committee said the complainant had shown disrespect to the House by not appearing before it. Terming his act as amounting to contempt of the House, the Assembly should reprimand him.
Sampangi is facing corruption charges filed by Lokayukta police in the Lokayukta special court. A charge-sheet has been filed against him. The committee had finalised its report even as two of its members did not attend any of its proceedings. V Srinivas Prasad (Cong) and H K Kumaraswamy (JD-S) kept off from the meetings due to their personal engagements. However, they were not critical of the findings of the report.
Speaker K G Bopaiah said the Assembly would decide on punishing the complainant.A motion has to be moved in this regard and the House will have to pass a resolution for future action.
DH News Service
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