BENGALURU: The Special Court for Lokayukta Cases castigated the Karnataka Lokayukta police for their “utter negligence, serious lapses in conducting the investigation, filing of final reports without application of mind and adhering to procedure”, stating that it is leading to victimising of innocents and escape of real culprits from the clutches of law, and compelling the courts to invest valuable time for no purpose. This not only makes the general public lose faith in the system, but also renders injustice rather than justice to the common people, it added.
Judge KM Radhakrishna passed the order, while acquitting four accused -- BS Shivaprakash, the then First Division Assistant; MP Baligar, the then Commissioner; KT Chikkanna, the then Joint Director; and SI Bhavikatti, the then Manager of Kannada and Culture Department — of the charges of misappropriation of gold medals kept in their custody for presentation to Kannada Rajyotsava awardees, as the prosecution failed to prove the case.
Offering this case as an example of negligence and lapses by investigation officers (IOs) in several cases it has come across for castigating the Lokayukta police, the Special Court highlighted that the said case was registered in 2014 in violation of the statutory requirement by inspector NG Shivashankar based on media reports, even without conducting the preliminary investigation into the allegations of misappropriation of six gold medals mentioned in the audit report of the Accountant General, which is false.
“They (IOs) have developed the habit of completely depending upon their assistants to prepare the final reports without taking any pain in the matter of investigation. They decline to look into the papers personally, but entrust the whole responsibility of an investigation to their assistants, who lack procedural knowledge. This indicates a lack of commitment to the officers in ascertaining the correctness or otherwise of such reports. They submit the chargesheets to the courts by simply putting their signatures and washing off their hands after getting case numbers from the court,” the court observed.
Observing that the IOs were least bothered about the limitations prescribed under the CrPC regarding the completion of the probe and submitting the final reports on time, the court said this leads to the pendency of cases before the courts, decades together apart from compelling the litigants to face unnecessary embarrassments by losing their valuable time, money, health, etc. The pending FIRs from 2014 till date before this court are the best example of how the limitations are being ignored. This delay in filing the chargesheets results in serious lapses, shortcomings, procedural irregularity and destruction of evidence due to lapse of time and gives scope for the real culprits to escape from the clutches of law, the court noted.
Directing the Lokayukta police to return 19 gold medals and 188 files seized during the investigation to the Kannada and Culture Department, the court asked the office to forward the copy of the judgement to the Additional Director General of Police, Karnataka Lokayukta, for information and sensitising the officers concerned.
“I think this is the right time to bring these kinds of lapses to the notice of the higher-ups concerned,” said Judge Radhakrishna.