Karnataka Lokayukta raids Bangalore Development Authority office following complaints
Bengaluru, Feb 10: The Karnataka Lokayukta police on Friday raided the Bangalore Development Authority's office following many complaints and public grievance petitions against the agency.
According to a senior Lokayukta officer, the teams swooped down at the BDA office here in the morning and carried out searches in six different sections of the agency with several files being scrutinised.
Later speaking to reporters, Karnataka Lokayukta Justice B S Patil said the searches were conducted following many complaints flooding the Lokayukta office.
"We will investigate the cases in a systematic way, so that people should not face such problems in future. We have to investigate the previous cases and streamline things for future," Justice Patil said.
"We are scrutinising all the files. We will open all the pending cases even if it takes 12 midnight or 1 am. We will bring out everything," the Lokayukta said.
Refraining from sharing the details, Justice Patil said this was not the right time to share details and asked people to wait for the right time.
"We are in the process of investigation. We will not share the details. We will only tell you that our team has come and started investigation. We will seize all the documents and conducted searches if required," he added.
According to sources in the BDA, there were complaints of large-scale irregularities in the BDA with regard to some layout formation, distribution of plots, land acquisition processes and denotification of acquired land.
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K’taka HC judge whose controversial remarks triggered controversy expresses regret before open court
Bengaluru: Karnataka High Court judge, Justice V Srishananda, on Saturday expressed regret in open court after facing backlash over his controversial remarks in his recent court hearings, reported Bar and Bench.
Two purported video clips from Justice V Srishananda’s court hearing that show him making inappropriate comments went viral across social media platforms.
On Saturday, Justice Srishananda invited members of the Advocates Association, Bengaluru, and senior lawyers to his courtroom at 2:30 PM, where he read out a note expressing regret for inappropriate comments.
Quoting Advocates Association President Vivek Subba Reddy, Bar and Bench wrote, “He expressed regret for the comments and clarified that it was not his intention to offend any community or members of the Bar. He also requested the association to relay this message to all members of the Bar.”
Reddy further stated, “We also advised him to encourage young lawyers in the courtroom and refrain from making any irrelevant remarks during hearings.”
Another senior lawyer present during the session confirmed to the legal news portal that Justice Srishananda also addressed comments directed at a woman lawyer, who was seen in one of the videos being reprimanded by the judge. The judge Justice Srishananda clarified that his remarks were not intended to target her (woman lawyer) specifically, but rather pertained to the appellant she was representing. “He explained that his comment was meant to imply that the appellant seemed to know a lot about the other party,” said the lawyer.
In addition, Justice Srishananda assured those present that he would avoid making such comments in the future.
The controversy came to light on September 19, when a video clip from an August 28 Court hearing surfaced on social media, showing Justice Srishananda referring to a Muslim-majority sub-locality in Bengaluru’s Goripalya as "Pakistan." Hours later, another video from the same courtroom emerged, in which the judge was seen making a gender-insensitive remark.
Following outrage over the viral videos, a Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, along with Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, Surya Kant, and Hrishikesh Roy, on September 20 took a suo motu cognizance and sought a report from the Karnataka High Court Registrar General in connection with the viral video.
