Former Karnataka Lokayukta N Santosh Hegde on Thursday accused the state governm-ent of trying to damage the institution of Lokayukta and “kill” high-profile corruption cases.
A “headless” Lokayukta in Karnataka is “benefiting” the Government and the stand-off between it and the Governor on the issue of new head to the anti-corruption agency is hurting the organisation very much, Hegde said here.
He blasted the Lokayukta Police for filing a ‘B’ report in the court stating that there was no material to substantiate allegations of misuse of office by Home and Transport Minister R Ashoka on buying and getting 23 acres and 12 guntas (one acre is 40 guntas) of land denotified in Bangalore.
Lokayukta police repor-ted that the alleged action of Ashoka did not attract provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Refer-ring to the case, Hegde, a key member of Team Anna, noted that after denotification of land which was acquired and acquisition is final, original owner who lost the site following the acquisition, enters into agreement with the minister.
“Then you denotify and give it the Minister. How can it be done? Connected matters are there; one uniform decision had to be taken. They will keep filing the ‘B’ reports. It will kill other (similar) cases,” he said referring to cases against some ministers and MLAs.”