The counsel for the Samaj Parivartan Samudaya (SPS) on Tuesday claimed that the government counsel on Monday “misled” a Division Bench presided over by the acting Chief Justice about the issues raised in its petition, seeking a direction for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into alleged corruption in the Lokayukta institution, and hence the petition was transferred to another Division Bench.
K.V. Dhananjay, counsel for SPS, made submission in this regard before a Division Bench comprising Justice N. Kumar and Justice B. Sreenivase Gowda when the public interest litigation (PIL) petition came up for hearing.
A Division Bench comprising acting Chief Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee and Justice B.V. Nagarathna, before which the PIL plea came up for hearing on Monday, said that “to avoid conflicting judicial opinion” the petition would be heard by the Division Bench comprising Mr. Justice Kumar and Mr. Justice Sreenivase Gowda, which is hearing a petition filed by Ashwin Y, son of Lokayukta Y. Bhaskar Rao.
Transferred
The Bench headed by the acting Chief Justice transferred the PIL petition after hearing the contentions of both the counsel for the SPS and the Additional Advocate-General (AAG) A.S. Ponnanna about the facts raised in it.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Mr. Dhananjay alleged that the AAG had “misled” the Bench presided over by the acting Chief Justice by “misrepresenting” the facts by giving an impression that the issue raised in the PIL petition was the same as that was raised in the petition filed by Mr. Ashwin, who had questioned the Upalokayukta’s order for probing the corruption charges. But for misrepresentation, the Bench headed by the acting Chief Justice, which is the Bench to hear PIL petitions, could have heard its plea, the SPS counsel claimed.
However, Mr. Ponnana refuted Mr. Dhananjay’s claims while pointing out that the Bench headed by the acting Chief Justice had passed order transferring the PIL petition to this Bench after hearing the contentions of both the sides.
Written statements
Following these submissions, the Bench headed by Mr. Justice Kumar asked the SPS counsel and the AAG to file their written statements with regard to claims and counter-claims on “misrepresentation.”
Meanwhile, the Bench adjourned hearing on the petition filed by Mr. Ashwin awaiting the report of the Special Investigation Team, set up by the State government to probe the allegation of corruption allegedly involving him.
SPS petition seeks direction for a CBI probe into alleged corruption in the Lokayukta institution
