Balakrishna case: Court summons Lokayukta ADGP

 The Special Lokayukta Court issued summons on Monday to the Lokayukta Additional Director General of Police directing him to appear personally before the court on Tuesday after the police failed to submit the final report in a disproportionate assets case involving H D Balakrishna Gowda, a retired KAS officer and son of former prime minister H D Deve Gowda.

 Judge N K Sudhindra Rao passed the orders after the Lokayukta police sought more time on three occasions during the day to submit the final report. The judge also observed that the attitude of the Superintendent of Police (SP), to whom the investigation was referred, did not appear to be appreciable. “The ADGP is directed to personally be present and clarify the inconsistent replies over the matter entrusted to the investigating agency,” the judge said.

“The undesirable treatment meted out to the court is placed on record.” Police previously submitted that the final report on the investigation in the disproportionate assets case was complete and that it would be submitted on Monday.

 However, when the case was called on Monday morning, the police sought some time for submitting the report.

 When the matter was called again, the report was not submitted and the court sought to know why there was a delay when the police had already conveyed that the investigations had been completed. Later, the court directed Superintendent of Police P K Shivashankar to be present before it for an explanation as the matter had been referred to him for investigation. The matter was called again in the evening and the SP was not present, nor was the report submitted. Incensed by this, the court issued summons to the ADGP.

The case was referred to the police for investigation on September 24, 2011. During the submission of the status of investigation report by the police, the court was informed that the investigation was being delayed as the Department of Income Tax had not yet sent the documents and information to the Lokayukta police about the various investments, earnings and wealth tax details related to Balakrishna, his family and businesses run by them.

The Income Tax officials had also been summoned by the court to expedite the information sought by the police. During the last hearing, the complainant Balakrishna S N submitted a letter to the court he had received alleging that documents pertaining to the investigation were being passed on to Balakrishna Gowda by Suresh, a Lokayukta police constable. Suresh incidentally is in investigating officer DySP Prasanna V Raju’s team. The matter will be heard again on Tuesday.