HASSAN: Karnataka HC on Wednesday summoned Hassan MP and JD(S) chief HD Deve Gowda's grandson Prajwal Revanna for allegedly filing a false and incomplete affidavit with his nomination papers during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
The court published a notice in a local Kannada daily of Hassan district to summon Prajwal on September 30 as the JD(S) leader didn’t receive its written notice following a petition filed by Congress leader Devarajegowda and the-then BJP candidate A Manju who lost to Prajwal in the parliamentary election. "In default of our appearance on the aforementioned date, the petition will be heard and determined in your absence,' the court said in its notice.
The petitioners have also filed a separate complaint with the state election commission against Revanna alleging that the latter has failed to submit the actual details of his assets in the affidavit to the election commission.
Though the court has already served three notices to his official address in Paduvalahippe of Holenarasipur taluk, Prajwal stated that he yet to receive the notice. Hence, the court directed the petitioners to publish the notice in a prominent Kannada local daily directing Prajwal to attend the court as mentioned date.
According to Devarajegowda, Prajwal allegedly has buried the details of assets owned by him and also failed to file income tax returns for the same. "We have furnished the documents attached to actual assets owned by Prajwal in detail to the court which will take its legal course of action in future," the Congress leader said.
Prajwa's family, which had not expected the issue to take a serious turn, was stunned when the-then state chief electoral officer Sanjiv Kumar wrote to the Election Commission of India, seeking direction to take action, and that what kind of action to be initiated against the candidate, if the charges are proved.
The state Election Commission also wrote to the-then Deputy Commissioner and Returning Officer Priyanka Mary Francis, to furnish details of the affidavit submitted, along with the candidate's nominations after conducting an inquiry. It is said that the affidavit was allegedly incomplete, with the candidate mentioning a vacant site in the heart of Holenarasipur, where a building and a cinema theatre exist. It was also alleged that Prajwal didn't mention the transactions and revenue of last five years either.
Though Prajwal has mentioned a loan of Rs 26 lakh borrowed from his grandfather HD Deve Gowda, but the latter didn’t mention any cash transactions with his grandson in his affidavit in Tumakuru.
It is also said that Prajwal didn’t mention his partnership with MNCs, where he reportedly invested in a huge number of shares. The former district in-charge minister HD Revanna had, on several occasions, said that the deputy commissioner has nothing to do with the nomination, as the affidavit had already accepted.