BANGALURU: Upa Lokayukta Justice Subhash B Adi on Thursday filed a writ petition in the High Court challenging the motion adopted against him by the assembly for his ouster. The petition has been listed before Justice Anand Byrareddy for hearing on Friday.
Justice Adi has challenged the communication (KLAS/SEC31/2015) issued by the office of Assembly Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa to the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR) and marked a copy to the Lokayukta registrar on December 3. He has made the secretaries of the Legislative Assembly and DPAR as respondents in his petition.
The communication from the Speaker’s office was sent to the registrar after he went there on December 3 as there was no response to the letter written by him on November 30 seeking to know what he should do as neither the Lokayukta nor Upa Lokayukta were attending office.
The letter marked to Registrar (in-charge) M S Balakrishna stated that motions were moved in the Houses to remove the Lokayukta and Upa Lokayukta. Accordingly, Section 6 (14) of the Karnataka Lokayukta (Amendment) Bill, 2015, would come into effect. The letter, however, did not say whether the motions were admitted or not.
Justice Adi also challenged the legality of the motion adopted by the Assembly before verifying valid reasons and sufficient grounds for his ouster. This amounts to violation of procedure laid down in the amended Lokayukta Act, he contended.
Express had earlier reported that the Upa Lokayukta is likely to move the HC. “The secretary of the legislature should study the evidence in support of the allegations against the Upa Lokayukta and then refer it to the Speaker. Only then can a motion be moved. But in this case, the Speaker’s office sought documents from the Lokayukta office after the motion was moved. This makes way for a legal battle,” a legal expert told Express.