Excise DC says seized liquor was for Renukacharya

The Special Lokayukta Court on Saturday ordered an inquiry after a deputy commissioner of Excise Department submitted in the Court that the stash of alcohol in his office was meant to be supplied to Excise Minister Renukacharya.

The Deputy Commissioner of Excise, Mohan Kumar L N, was arrested on Thursday by the Lokayukta police, after a search in his office yielded Rs 25,000 cash in three envelopes and 20 bottles of whisky worth around Rs 1 lakh. Mohan Kumar was remanded in judicial custody.

When he appeared in court for the hearing of his bail application, Mohan Kumar submitted that some of the alcohol, specifically a 4.5 litre bottle of whisky and two one-litre bottles of Double Black Label Johnny Walker were kept in his office, as it had to be supplied to Golden Palms resort where the MLAs gathered by former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa were holed up. This was on the instructions of Renukacharya, he claimed. 

Following this, Judge N K Sudhindra Rao directed Lokayukta Inspector P Narasimha Murthy to conduct a probe into the matter under Section 202 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and file a report. The judicial custody of Mohan Kumar has been extended and the hearing of his bail application has been adjourned to Monday.

The searches conducted by the Lokayukta police on Thursday in the offices of the Deputy Commissioners of the State Excise Department located on JC Road had yielded large quantities of whisky of different brands prompting them to arrest one of the Deputy Commissioners. 

The searches were conducted in the offices of East, West, North and South divisions and were prompted by complaints of large-scale irregularities during year-end transactions.

BSY in court

Former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa, his sons B Y Raghavendra and B Y Vijayendra, son-in-law R N Sohan Kumar, former minister Krishnaiah Setty and others appeared in the Special Lokayukta Court on Saturday, regarding three private complaints filed against them, alleging illegal denotification of land in and around Bangalore. 

Judge N K Sudhindra Rao directed the complainant Sirajin Basha to furnish the list of witnesses in all the three complaints and adjourned the matter to April 18.