The High Court of Karnataka on Tuesday adjourned the hearing of a petition that questioned how and why Chief Minister Siddaramaiah accepted a luxurious watch as a gift.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Anupama Shenoy, a former deputy superintendent of police, who sought its directions to the Union government and the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation
(CBI) to act on the representation given by her on July 15, 2017.

The petitioner demanded a CBI probe into how the chief minister got the diamond-studded Hublot
watch said to cost over Rs 80 lakh.

The former police officer demanded that the CBI investigate “corruption, criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy and nepotism” behind the controversy.

According to Shenoy, on March 2, 2016, Siddaramaiah stated that the Hublot Big Bang-301-M watch was gifted to him by
Dr Girish Chandra Varma, an old friend and a Dubai-based cardiac surgeon, that it cost nearly
Rs 7 lakh and was a pre-owned one.

The chief minister later handed over the watch to Kagodu Thimmappa, then speaker of the Legislative Assembly, and requested him to give it to the chief secretary to be placed in the Cabinet Hall of the Vidhana Soudha as a “state asset”. 

‘Hand it over to Centre’

As an interim prayer, Shenoy urged the court to order the chief secretary to hand over the watch to the Union government represented by its under-secretary and the director of the CBI until they disposed of her representation. 

The court observed that the matter should be heard by a regular bench and adjourned the hearing until May 28.