It has been a politically hectic weekend in Karnataka where a flashpoint, one that has been in the making for the past few weeks, opened up on August 17 with governor Thaawarchand Gehlot according sanction to a batch of petitions seeking to prosecute chief minister Siddaramaiah under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The governor’s action was met with an angry and scathing response by the ruling Congress, which is now flexing its political muscle by rallying party workers to protest against what it believes is an attempt to ‘destalibilise’ its government in the state.
The main battle, however, is brewing on the legal front. On August 19, Siddaramaiah moved the Karnataka High Court with a petition to quash the governor’s sanction order for investigations into allegations about the allotment of housing plots to Siddaramaiah’s wife Parvathi by the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA).
The legal challenge came two days after Siddaramaiah had called an urgent meeting of his cabinet, which unanimously resolved to back the chief minister and condemned the governor’s action. At a press conference after the cabinet meeting on August 17, Siddaramaiah, flanked by his ministers, accused Gehlot of acting as a “puppet” in the hands of the BJP-led central government. “This attempt won’t be successful. They (BJP) are under the illusion that they can topple a popular government,” Siddaramaiah said.
Meanwhile, the BJP, Karnataka’s main Opposition party, also stepped up its demand for the chief minister’s resignation by taking out protest demonstrations on August 19 when the Congress was holding protests of its own, against the governor’s decision.
Over the past year, since the Congress came to power in Karnataka, its relations with governor Gehlot have been cordial and uneventful. Now, however, things are on a collision course.
The allegations over irregularities in housing site allotments in Mysuru city by MUDA cropped up in early July with Opposition parties claiming there was a ‘scam’ to the tune of Rs 5,000 crore. In particular, they questioned the allocation of 14 sites to Siddaramaiah’s wife in 2021 as compensation for 3.16 acres of land she had lost during the development of a new housing layout in Mysuru. The 3.16 acres had been gifted to Parvathi in 2010 by her brother, who had purchased the property in 2004.
The Opposition has also raised questions about how the family came to own the property, which had once been dropped from a government acquisition process in 1998, incidentally when Siddaramaiah was deputy chief minister of Karnataka.
The chief minister has dismissed any suggestion of illegality, saying that MUDA had offered compensation because it had encroached on his wife’s property without legally acquiring it. Besides, he pointed out that the plots were awarded when a BJP government was in power in Karnataka. Siddaramaiah, who had served his first chief ministerial term in 2013-2018, assumed the post again in May last year after the Congress trounced the BJP in assembly elections.
However, when a petition seeking sanction to prosecute the chief minister over the MUDA allegations reached the governor’s office on July 26 this year, Gehlot issued a show-cause notice to Siddaramaiah. Rattled by the action, the Karnataka cabinet, on August 1, issued a point-by-point rebuttal, arguing that the applications for sanction suffered from ‘serious legal infirmities’, and advised the governor to withdraw the show-cause notice. Siddaramaiah, meanwhile, also sent his reply to the governor on August 3, denying the allegations.
On August 17, the governor noted that the decision taken by the council of ministers was ‘irrational’. He pointed to the ‘government’s own acceptance that there is a potential big ticket scam in the allotment of sites by MUDA’ and that it had initially set up a committee, headed by an IAS officer, to look into the allegations and subsequently appointed a judicial commission (under retired high court judge Justice P.N. Desai) to probe these allegations.
“Since the sanction is sought against the chief minister himself, the surrounding circumstances of placing the show cause notice before the cabinet and the decision of the cabinet advising me to withdraw the notice would not inspire confidence to act on such advice of the Cabinet,” noted the governor.
Citing a Supreme Court ruling from 2004, in the case of Madhya Pradesh Police Establishment Vs State of Madhya Pradesh (wherein the judgment had said: “If, in cases where prima-facie is clearly made out, sanction to prosecute high functionaries is refused or withheld, democracy itself will be at stake”), Gehlot said that it was “very necessary that a neutral, objective and non-partisan investigation should be conducted” and that he was “prima facie satisfied that the allegations and the supporting materials disclose commission of offences”.
The governor’s sanction against Siddaramaiah has been accorded under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and Section 218 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023. The sanction was given on petitions by T.J. Abraham, Snehamayi Krishna and Pradeep Kumar. While the first two are activists, the latter is the president of the legal cell of the Janata Dal (Secular), an ally of the BJP.
“We knew this would happen because this is a big conspiracy,” said Siddaramaiah at his press conference on August 17. According to him, the governor showed undue haste in acting upon the petitions against him while other petitions seeking sanction against public functionaries, including former chief minister and JD(S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy and former ministers Shashikala Jolle and Murugesh Nirani, have been pending before the governor for months. In the present case, however, the governor had issued a show-cause notice on the same day that he had received a petition, Siddaramaiah said.
Appearing for the chief minister, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi argued in the Karnataka High Court that the governor had failed to elaborate on the reasons for rejecting the advice of the council of ministers. Singhvi argued that there had been no application of mind while issuing the sanction order and that there had been ‘legal mala fide’ in the hasty process in which the governor addressed the first petition by Abraham who, he said, had a history of filing vexatious and frivolous suits.
However, solicitor general Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the governor, said that no applications for sanction were pending before the latter.
Siddaramaiah is also challenging the petition on the grounds that the standard operating procedures for processing cases under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act had not been followed. Section 17A refers to an inquiry or investigation of offences to recommendations made or decision taken by a public servant in discharge of official functions or duties. “An application for previous approval under Section 17A can be made only by a police officer and not anyone else,” the cabinet had said on August 1, while discussing the show-cause notice. The standard operating procedures specify that only an officer of rank of director general of police can seek approval under Section 17A against chief ministers.
The Karnataka High Court has posted the hearing to August 29. Since a lower court was due to pass an order on the applicability of one of the complaints filed against Siddaramaiah, the high court has ordered it to defer proceedings on complaints relating to the MUDA allegations until then.
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