BENGALURU: Expressing displeasure over the manner in which the state government has handled the IMA scam so far, the Karnataka High Court on Wednesday directed the Bengaluru Division’s Regional Commissioner, who was appointed as Competent Authority to take steps on complaints, to expedite steps to realise the assets of IMA and its entities, and to distribute money to the depositors.
The division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice H T Narendra Prasad pointed out the state’s inaction on complaints filed against IMA in 2018.
“Prima facie, we find that due to default on part of the state government, the CA has not discharged his legal obligations. After the allegations against IMA came to light in 2018, the Assistant Commissioners were appointed as CAs in all districts under the Karnataka Protection of Interest of Depositors in Financial Institutions (KPID) Act.
Instead of taking action, the state cancelled the appointment of CAs. The state cannot be ignorant about the complaints received in November 2018. For about four and a half months, the state did not find a time to appoint a CA. On June 25, 2019, the state-appointed Bengaluru Urban DC Vijay Shankar as CA. Whether it is a matter of coincidence or not, the same officer was arrested on the very same offence. The state has accepted the need of CA, but it has not taken steps to appoint CA, after IAS officer Vijay Shankar was arrested on July 8, 2019.
What inference can be drawn ?” the court asked. The court also directed the Special Investigation Team to submit the report on investigation in a sealed cover by July 30, 2019.
The state then informed the court that it had appointed Regional Commissioner of Bengaluru Division as
CA on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, counsels of the petitioners urged the court to refer the case to CBI.
The court also connected the case of Vijay Shankar, who has moved the court seeking directions to the state to handover the case to CBI from SIT, to the batch of PILs seeking directions to the state to protect the interest of depositors.