JOIN USFresh complaint over 'illegal wealth' against Somanna
A fresh complaint has been lodged in the Lokayukta Court against Minister V Somanna, accusing him of illegally amassing wealth to the tune of Rs 12.42 crore.
Lingadahalli Chethan Kumar filed the complaint on Thursday, charging the Housing Minister with possessing assets double the actual income he had declared in his affidavit.
Ever since the start of his career as a public servant in 1974, Somanna has used his office to accrue wealth, the complaint stated.
Kumar, who has computed the value of the minister’s assets by collecting documents and details from the various departments under the RTI, stated that the total worth of assets declared by Somanna was Rs 6.07 crore. But the actual value of his possessions is a whopping Rs 17.88 crore, he claimed.
Kumar’s lawyer Bytha N Jagadeesha stated that the minister and his wife did not own ancestral properties or ran major businesses to justify such an exponential growth in their wealth.
“While the accused number one (Somanna) was an ordinary salesman earning a salary of Rs 187, his wife was selling bhajjis on the streets,” he told the court.
The complainant submitted that Somanna started VSS Educational Trust on October 30, 2004, “to provide quality education.”
But the fact is that he used it to cover up his ill-gotten wealth and claim benefits of the Trust, which gets exemptions under the law.
He also said Somanna’s wife Shylaja had received a gift of Rs 16 lakh in cash, despite the laws prohibiting a public servant or his spouse accepting gifts from the public.
The lawyer claimed that the minister, apart from amassing huge wealth during his tenure in politics, had also undervalued his declared assets, and in some cases, even concealed their true value.
The case has been posted to December 27 for further hearing.