BENGALURU: Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi on Thursday argued before the Karnataka High Court that Governor
Thawaarchand Gehlot had committed a serious constitutional sin by granting sanction to prosecute Chief Minister Siddaramaiah without giving any reasons as well as recording findings to point out what and how he played a role in the alleged illegal allotment of compensatory sites to his wife Parvathy BM.
The court has reserved the order as the marathon arguments on the petition concluded on Thursday.
Arguing before Justice M Nagaprasanna, who was hearing the petition filed by Siddaramaiah questioning the order passed by the Governor, Singhvi expressed concern that there are chances of an elected government falling if the protection under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act is not extended to public servants by the act by the Governor, who unilaterally granted sanction by accepting the politically motivated complaints filed by third parties.
The court orally observed that the protection was given to protect innocents but not the guilty.
To a query by the court whether the CM’s son, who is an MLA, participated in the meeting held by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority as an ex-officio member, Singhvi said he attended the meetings but did not participate in the deliberations on site allotment.
Alleging that the act of the Governor was biased and irrational, he argued that the Governor had violated Article 14 by choosing only the petitioner by misapplying discretionary powers though there were similar requests for sanction pending before him against former ministers of the previous BJP government and a union minister.
The whole alleged transactions in MUDA took place when the BJP government was ruling the state and the Congress, to which Siddaramaiah belongs, was in the opposition, he said.
He contended that the Governor had taken two-and-a-half years to reject the request for sanction against former minister Shashikala Jolle about irregularities in the supply of eggs to schoolchildren.
“A clarification was sought by him on August 28 about the request for sanction against former minister Murugesh Nirani. Similarly, a request against Union Minister HD Kumaraswamy was rejected. In one of the cases, the Governor has asked to provide translated copies of Kannada documents. However, in the MUDA scam, he issued a show-cause notice on the very same day of the complaint received, though the documents were in Kannada,” he said. Singhvi accused the complainant TJ Abraham of habitual litigating with well-history of blackmailing.
The court, however, orally observed that a whistle-blower always faces this problem.