BENGALURU: Thirteen years after a criminal case was booked against three former top Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) officials by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board on charges of polluting Bellandur Lake, a metropolitan court on Friday dismissed the case.
The case, filed in September 2005, was against former retired chief engineer E Thippeswamy, then chief engineer A Venkataraju and then executive engineer Krishnappa. Judge Vijaykumar Imagundi acquitted them of all charges in the KSPCB vs BWSSB case.
A KSPCB official told TNIE that the case was filed against the Water Board as well as three officials, during a surprise inspection by the assistant environmental officer and the deputy officer of the Pollution Board. “They found that sewage from Koramangala and Challaghatta Valley was allowed to flow untreated into Bellandur Lake for an entire day because the Sewage Treatment Plant installed there could not function in the absence of power supply. It was the duty of BWSSB officials to take care that an alternative source of power supply was arranged but they did not do so,” said a top official. This was an old 108-Million Litre capacity plant, he added.
The KSPCB official expressed disappointment and shock over the closure of the case. A second case against another set of BWSSB officials for polluting Bellandur Lake will come up for hearing on Monday (December 24), he added.