BENGALURU: Expressing shock over the disregard shown by the Karnataka Lokayukta police and Home Department in rectifying a defective sanction order, despite a second opportunity, the Special Court for Lokayukta cases acquitted a former deputy superintendent of police, Narayanaswamy, in a corruption case registered nearly a two decades ago.
“It is a matter of surprise that despite this court accorded sufficient time after returning the defective sanction order with the entire original file to the Lokayukta police, which in turn was submitted to the Home Department which did not carry out any corrections but resubmitted the file with an observation that same could be reconsidered to prosecute the accused,” said Judge SV Srikanth of the special court.
He said the question of giving one more opportunity to the Home Department and Lokayukta police to submit the sanction order afresh did not arise because they knew fully well that the fresh sanction order was issued after causing an inordinate delay without rectifying the mistakes in the first sanction order issued in 2009.
“Initially this case was numbered in 2009 but it was replaced by a new number in 2022. Again the prosecution committed the same mistake without taking steps to rectify the mistake in the accused name and designation in the sanction order.
“Almost two decades have passed, despite the same even now the prosecution is not able to place a valid sanction order to facilitate this court to deal with the matter effectively and render judgment...,” the court observed.
It said it had given a call bypassing the order dated September 4, 2020, to rectify the defective sanction order, but the Home Department and Lokayukta police have made the entire exercise futile.
The Bengaluru division of Lokayukta police filed a chargesheet against him following the registration of FIR on March 13, 2006, for allegedly possessing Rs 47.70 lakh assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.