K'taka High Court orders release of Rs 12.15 lakh seized in graft case

The high court has ordered release of Rs 12.15 lakh that was seized from the house of a former joint director for employment and training in a graft case.

Justice K Natarajan noted that while the amount was seized from the house of Shivalingamurthy, no separate investigation was taken up in this regard as well as no charge sheet was filed.

The case pertains to the raid conducted by the Lokayukta police in July 2003 at the office of Department of Employment and Training, Bengaluru. The Lokayukta police had credible information that the director of an ITI Training Institute, an IAS officer, and Shivalingamurthy were collecting money from ITI Institutes for allowing the students to indulge in examination malpractices.

The Lokayukta police case was that Rs 7 lakh was seized from the office. Pursuant to this, one of the Lokayukta police teams also searched the house of Shivalingamurthy and seized Rs 12.15 lakh.

After the investigation, the Lokayukta police filed the charge sheet only against Shivalingamurthy since the Union government did not accord sanction to prosecute the IAS officer. The trial court acquitted Shivalingamurthy observing the allegations had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.

While Shivalingamurthy moved an appeal seeking release of the cash seized from his house, the Lokayukta police challenged the order of acquittal.

Justice K Natarajan dismissed the appeal filed by the Lokayukta police noting that the witnesses had turned hostile and that the prosecution had failed to prove that Rs 7 lakh was brought to the department by collecting from private ITI colleges as a bribe.

Insofar as the cash seized from Shivalingamurthy’s house, the court said that except the evidence of DySP A N Rajanna, who was the complainant, there was no corroborating evidence.

“There is no order passed by the trial court either to confiscate the amount or to release the said amount to the appellant. Therefore, when the investigating officer, though seized Rs 12,15,000 from the house of the appellant-accused, has not done any investigation and no charge sheet has been filed on the said amount. Therefore, the said amount is liable to be released to the accused,” the court said.