 "Cop's suicide: Court orders FIR against Karnataka minister, 2 IPS officers")
A Madikeri court in Kodagu district on Monday ordered police to file a First Information Report (FIR) against Karnataka minister K J George and two Indian Police Service (IPS) officers in connection with the alleged suicide of Deputy Superintendent of Police M K Ganapathi on July 7.
The two alleged IPS officers are Additional Director General of Police (Intelligence) A M Prasad and Lokayukta (Ombdusman) Inspector General of Police Pranob Mohanty.
Additional Judicial Magistrate Annapurneshwari ordered Madikeri police to file the FIR against these three on a private complaint filed by Ganapathi's elder son Nehal under section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The complaint is based on the Ganapathi's interview to a local news channel hours before he committed suicide in a lodge room in the town. In the interview, he accused the trio of harassing him and held them responsible should anything happen to him in future.
Madikeri is about 260 km from Bengaluru.
Though local police had filed a case of unnatural death under section 174 of the IPC on July 8, the complainant petitioned the court to treat the Ganapathi's interview as his dying declaration under 32 (1) of the IPC and file an FIR against the trio.
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In a related development, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said in the legislative council that he would wait for the court order before responding to the demand of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader K S Eshwarappa that George should be sacked or told to resign.
BJP and Janata Dal-Secular members disrupted the house proceedings, demanding the resignation of George, suspension of Prasad and Mohanty. They also demanded to transfer the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation instead of a judicial inquiry.
George was the Home Minister till October 31, 2015 before he was made Bengaluru Development Minister, and the ruling party's state unit president G Parameshwara replaced him.