Charge sheet gives C T Ravi clean chit

The Lokayukta police submitted a charge sheet to the Special Lokayukta Court on Tuesday in the investigations against Chikmagalur BJP MLA C T Ravi and his family.

Surprisingly, while the immediate family of Ravi has been held responsible for flouting rules and forging documents, the MLA himself has been absolved of all wrongdoing. The charge sheet has been filed against his wife Pallavi, her brother Sudharshan and her sister-in-law Tejaswini holding them responsible for fabricating documents to avail themselves of civic amenity sites in Chikmagalur and for two residential sites allotted by Karnataka Housing Board in Pallavi’s name.

According to the Lokayukta Additional General of Police H N Sathyanarayana Rao, “the charges of abuse of official power cannot be proved against Ravi due to lack of evidence.”

This is despite the fact that Ravi was an MLA of Chikmagalur at the time of commission of offences and possibility of these offences being committed without his knowledge was unlikely, if not his direct involvement.

Two other public officials accused in the complaint, then Secretary of the Karnataka Housing Board (KHB) Lakshminarayana and then AEE of KHB, Siddalingaswamy have also been given a clean chit along with other accused, Pavana Anoop, Revathi Dharmapal, K N Puneet and Renuka Ramakrishna.

The counsel for the complainant has filed a memo challenging the decision to leave out Ravi from the charge sheet due to lack of evidence. The matter has been posted to April 7.

The investigations were conducted following the directions of the Special Lokayukta court based on a private complaint filed by Chikmagalur councilor R Devi Prasad alleging Ravi of obtaining civic amenity sites in Pallavi’s name through fraudulent means and also obtaining multiple housing sites measuring about 30,000 sq ft.

Devi Prasad had alleged that three civic amenity sites in Chikmagalur were allotted to Anjaneya Education Society in 2007, of which Pallavi, was the President and her sister Tejaswini was the General Secretary.