BANGALORE: Congress MLA Vijayanand Kashappanavar and his associate Somashekar Gowda, accused of roughing up police constables last week, were denied anticipatory bail on Thursday.
Judge Vishwanath Angadi of the Principal City Civil Court observed that the accused already faced several criminal charges. “Assaulting policemen on duty is a serious offence,” he said.
Balakrishna M R, advocate for Somashekar Gowda (alias Some Gowda), told Express, “We will challenge the order in the High Court on Friday.” Despite the order in their favour, the police had not initiated any action to arrest Kashappanavar, who allegedly slapped constable Kiran Kumar at Skyye, a lounge bar in UB City, on July 1. Hemanth Nimbalkar, Joint Commissioner (Crime), said the police would look into the court order and decide on their next step. Abhishek Goyal, DCP (Crime), said the MLA had appeared before the CCB and answered questions. “I don’t know whether a notice has been sent to Some Gowda,” he said. Goyal said the MLA’s wife Veena was only a witness and not an accused, and hence no notice would be sent to her.
Some newspapers had reported that the police had issued a notice to Veena, asking her to record her statement before the investigating officer. The CCB is waiting for a report from the forensic lab in Hyderabad before deciding on its course of action, he said. City Police Commissioner Raghavendra Auradkar said, “It is the investigating officer’s prerogative to decide on making an arrest. I don’t know what his strategy for investigation is....” he said.