D’Souza report aimed at diluting Lokayukta report, says Hegde

Mangalore Today News Network

Bangalore, Jan 4, 2012 : The report filed by V S D’Souza, DCP (intelligence), is a “premeditated attempt to dilute and deviate from the truth that Lokayukta unearthed in the mining report,” according to former Lokayukta, Justice N Santosh Hegde.

D’Souza, in his recent report, has given a clean chit to 191 State police officers and 617 public servants (on charges of bribes) stating that the allegations were baseless and there was no prima facie case. He states that the entire report by UV Singh was based on a pen drive furnished by the I-T department. The pen drive was seized during an I-T raid on November 25, 2010. The Lokayukta took the pen drive into its possession on February 21, 2011.

 

 

The then DG&IGP Achutha Rao had directed D’Souza to conduct a preliminary inquiry into illegal mining. In turn, the DCP examined five witnesses –– UV Singh, Shiva Selvi, I-T officer, Karapudi Mahesh, a key accused in the Lokayukta report and two witnesses during the panchanama (I-T raid) - Sreenivas and Sreenivas Naik.

D’Souza, in his report, says: “Charges of receiving bribe by public servants from Karapudi Mahesh or anyone else are false. The quality of evidence brought forth by Dr UV Singh, in my view, is inadequate. Based on this, cases cannot be registered against public servants. Unless more corroborating evidence is unearthed, going in for departmental proceedings against the officials will be futile.”

On Tuesday, Hegde took a dig at the D’Souza findings: “Isn’t it ridiculous to blame the I-T department and suspect the central agency of tampering with data. We approached the I-T department and on mutual understanding, we exchanged information.”
Meanwhile, D’Souza said: “I have done what I was asked to do. Now, it is up to the government to take note of it.”

The CrPC clearly states how a search operation has to be conducted. Going by the rule book, there are serious flaws and I-T officials raided Karapudi Mahesh’s house at 8 am, but the witnesses were brought around 10.30 am. Also, there was no documentary evidence at the time of the raid.

D’Souza clarifications
* I-T authorities have conducted the raid on the suspected premises of Karapudi Mahesh in a slipshod way. It is not clear where it is located. The I-T also claims that the premises may belong to Mahesh’s relatives.

* During the I-T panchanama (November 25, 2010), a person by name Ashok has appended his signature on the panchanama showing himself to be ‘employer’ of Karapudi Mahesh. But detailed inquiry could not bring out his identity.

* There are differences in the accounts of panchanama witnesses and I-T authorities: The timeline is misleading and the panchanama witnesses did not actually get to see how and where the documents were collected.

* One of the panchanama witnesses states he did not see any pen drive being seized.

* I-T officer was not sure whether the computer was there in the premises during the raid.

* Pen drive was supposed to contain the names of public servants and others who had reportedly received bribes from Karapudi Mahesh. Search was conducted on November 25, 2010 and I-T officials sat on this information for nearly four months, without any action.

* Dr Singh received pen drive from I-T on February 21, 2011 and was presumably aware of its contents. The list of recipients of the alleged bribe included quite a few incumbent Lokayukta police officials. But surprisingly, Singh did not recommend any action against them nor did he pass on the information to Lokayukta police to initiate action. As a result, officials who received bribes continued to function in Lokayukta for the next five months.

* When asked as to how the bribes are supposed to have been paid, Singh said these have been paid in cash. When pressed further, he stated there are no corroborative entries in bank records to prove it.

* Mahesh has studied till class VI in Kannada medium. Hence, it is logical to conclude that the incriminating entires were made by someone else. Singh has not found out who the computer operator is and how he came across the information.

 

Courtesy : Deccan Herlad