Cash gift to Karnataka journalists: No FIR even after a week

Its representatives also met Lokayukta Justice BS Patil and ADGP (Lokayukta) Prashant Kumar Thakur on 28 October and apprised them of the complaint.

“The Lokayukta assured us that the police wing of the institution will take action as per the law,” Adarsh R Iyer, who led the JSP delegation, told South First.

NGO claims to have evidence

He added that the non-profit has video evidence of a government-owned car, allotted to the chief minister’s media advisor, visiting the media houses. ADGP Thakur has sought the video, the activist said.

“We have a letter from the Chief Secretary’s office saying that the vehicle (the said car) was allocated to the chief minister’s media advisor to distribute Deepavali sweets”, Iyer said.

Iyer and his associates are planning to meet the ADGP again in a couple of days. “We will submit the video and the letter for his perusal”, he added.

Soon after South First reported about the incident, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said he had not instructed anyone to give cash gifts.

Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai. (File Photo)

While Bommai accused the Congress of lying and deemed the allegation a result of a “Congress toolkit”, he did not explicitly deny the charge, maintaining only that the instructions had not gone from him.

Where did the cash come from?

“Since the media advisor to the CM is directly involved in the distribution of the Deepavali sweet boxes which had cash. The chief minister had denied having knowledge of his media office giving away gift hampers. It begs the question, where was the source of the money”, the JSP activists asked.

“Since the media advisor is a Group-B, Class-2 public servant, and even if he had so much personal money, what was his intention in spending such a huge amount on journalists,” Iyer sought to know.

“If the CM’s media advisor has to be booked under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, it should be under Section 7 of the Act. The investigation agency, such as the Lokayukta police, will need the CM’s sanction to prosecute the advisor”, he said.

JSP added that it apprised the ADGP of the legal opinion it had taken.

“If we are unsatisfied with the Lokayukta probe at a later stage, we will complain to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the central agency which has jurisdiction to probe the matter under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, for Benami Funds, to find the source of the fund,” Iyer added.

A senior Lokayukta officer told South First that the Lokayukta police are probing the case, and the investigation will be confidential.

ADGP Thakur did not respond to multiple calls made to him.