Court dismisses corruption complaint against CM Siddaramaiah, minister over ad revenue losses

Bengaluru: A special court for MP/MLAs has dismissed a complaint against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, minister KJ George and three IAS officers alleging that they had caused advertisement revenue loss to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) during the year 2015-16 and 2016-17. Special court judge Santosh Gajanan Bhat observed that the allegations are leveled on assumptions and presumptions.

The complaint was filed by N R Ramesh, a former corporator and BJP leader. It was alleged that during the year 2015-16 and 2016-17, the state government had intended to publicise its achievements by displaying 290 ‘Kiosktype’ bus shelters and 149 ‘D-type’ bus shelters. Such advertisements had utilized the bus shelters causing a loss to the tune of Rs 68,14,90,236 to the BBMP, the complaint said. The complaint stated that the accused had utilized 439 bus shelters owned by the BBMP without obtaining the official permission of the corporation and also without paying any stipulated advertisement fee to it.

The complainant further suspected that the other accused, three IAS officers; Lakshminarayan, the then Principal Secretary of the Information and Public Information Department, Manivannan P, the then Principal Secretary of the Information and Public Information Department and Manjunath Prasad, the then Commissioner of BBMP, have kept quiet and not taken any steps as Siddaramaiah and KJ George would have bribed them.

The special court noted that the Karnataka Lokayukta had earlier closed the complaint, stating that the BBMP, being the potentially aggrieved party, had not filed any grievance against the state government. “..in the entire case, the allegations are leveled on assumptions and presumptions which cannot be a basis for setting criminal law into motion. The court said that when no prima facie case is made out, it would not be appropriate to refer the same for preliminary enquiry,” the special court said.

The court further said, “Under the circumstances, it would clearly indicate that the interest of justice will not be subserved, by once again referring the case for investigation. In fact, already the concerned Lokayukta has conducted enquiry, which is found correct. Ergo, the complaint is devoid of merits and the same is liable to be rejected.”