BENGALURU: The teams of Lokayukta Justice B S Patil, Upa Lokayuktas Justice K N Phaneendra and Justice B Veerappa visited six Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) in Yeshwanthpur, Rajajinagar, Jayanagar, Yelahanka, Kasturi Nagar and K R Puram on Friday to check the alleged rampant corruption and maladministration.
When Upa Lokayukta Justice B Veerappa and a team of judicial and police officers paid a surprise visit to the RTO office in Kasturi Nagar, as many as 49 Registration Certificates (RCs) and 83 Driving Licenses (DLs) were found in a shop in front of the RTO’s office. On most of those cards Rs 1,500, Rs 2,000, Rs 3,500 and Rs 5,000 were mentioned. On a few of them, “right mark” was found. The shop in which those RCs and DLs were found is Maruthi Motors Private Limited, belonging to one Rajanikantha.
Seizing all of them, the Upa Lokayukta said this is a serious offence and the RTO officials have failed to give a proper explanation. He directed the Deputy Superintendent of Police of Lokayukta to register a criminal case against RTO, ARTO, Superintendent and a private person, Rajanikantha.
RTO G P Krishnananda has failed to provide how many vehicles are in his limits, how many of them are stage carriers, whether the mineral transport vehicles are fitted with GPS, how many vehicles violated rules in the last two years and how many of them were seized.
But he informed that the fitness certificates of 37 vehicles out of a total of 702 school vehicles have expired, but he failed to produce the copies of the notices issued to those vehicles.
What is interesting is that all the officers of the RTO in KR Puram have deleted their PhonePe and Google Pay accounts immediately after the surprise visit. Therefore, the Upa Lokayukta directed them to produce the comparative statements of their annual salary, bank transactions and liabilities.
The RTO in KR Puram, Umesh said that a total of 7,51,755 vehicles are registered in his limits, and there are 1,199 school vehicles. In all, fitness certificates expired for 1,52,503 vehicles, but not the authentic copies of the notices issued to them.
In both offices, some of the staff were wearing jeans and T-shirts without adhering to the dress code prescribed by the state government. Some of the staff were found absent and did not distribute the DLs and Learning Licenses to the applicants, and kept them pending for reasons known to them.