Convicted officer gets bail, back in office

A deputy director in the mining department, who was convicted and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment by a Lokayukta Special Court in Mysore for accepting bribe from a granite company owner, is back as deputy director in the same department.

The officer in question, K Thimmappa, has now been posted in Tumkur. In September 2005, when he was posted in Chamarajnagar as deputy director (mining), he was caught red-handed by the Lokayukta sleuths while accepting a bribe of Rs 20,000 from K Nazib Ahmed, owner of ANF Granite Company, to give him permission to transport granite.

On November 9, 2011, the Special Court found him guilty and sentenced him to three years’ simple imprisonment besides imposing a penalty of Rs 35,000. After the conviction, he moved the Karnataka High Court, requesting to set aside the special court order. The HC suspended the sentence awarded by the special court, while observing that his appeal to set aside his conviction required consideration. It also released him on bail.

Armed with the HC judgment, Thimmappa approached higher-ups in his department, got reinstated and got posted in Ramanagar initially. Later he was transferred to Tumkur. When contacted, the Additional Director General of Police in Lokayukta, H N Satyanarayana Rao said there are clear directions from the law department that officers once convicted should not be reinstated. “We have at least three to four instances where the convicted officers got reinstated in the same department. This is despite the fact that the Law department wrote letters to all the departments strictly instructing them not to entertain such practices,” said Rao.

The principal secretary in the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms Sanjiv Kumar refused to comment till he gets the case details.