'Investigate closure of 2,000 complaints by ombudsman'

 A non-governmental organisation has filed a complaint with the Special Investigation team (SIT) probing the charges of corruption in the Lokayukta, seeking a probe into the closure of around 2,000 complaints in the ombudsman in the past one and a half years.

Members of Janadhikara Sangharsha Parishath (JSP), who had filed the complaint in the PWD engineer Krishnamurthy’s case with Upalokayukta Justice Subhash B Adi, said that around 1,000 complaints were closed within 20 days of registration.  “The Lokayukta received 4,250 complaints, and in 2015 around 2,600 complaints till June. Of these, we scrutinised around 5,000 complaints and found 2,000 were closed. It is a matter of concern that around 1,000 complaints against politicians, including the ministers and senior officials, were closed within 15-20 days,” Adarsh Iyer of JSP said.

The members said the SIT should be accorded more powers to probe in detail the larger conspiracy to use the office of Lokayukta and the cases pending before the anti-corruption watchdog.

“We met chief investigating officer of the SIT, Labhu Ram, and filed a complaint with details of the cases that were closed within 15-20 days without conducting a proper enquiry. The SP said the SIT had limited powers to conduct a probe on just two FIRs as of now. He expressed his inability to probe into the complaints other than these two. We demand the government to accord more powers to the SIT, if at all the chief minister wants to prove his crusade against corruption in the Lokayukta,” Adarsh Iyer said.