Karnataka High Court clarifies no material access can direct CBI investigation in RR voter scandal

The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday rejected the public interest litigation (PIL) petition which wanted a CBI probe to be directed for the 2018 assembly elections which is supposedly a voter id scam which involves RR Nagar legislator N Munirathna.

A division bench led by Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka studied the file intricately which comprised of the reports compiled by the additional commissioner of police (east) which clearly about the investigation being in-process for the two cases filed pertaining to this voter id scam.

Two years ago, in 2018, FIRs were lodged at the Jalahalli police station post the investigation at an apartment in Sharadamba Nagar under RR Nagar constituency where a large number of voter id cards were found.

Two self-claimed BJP self-sympathizers N Anand Kumar and G Santosh Kumar had filed the PIL to process the ongoing investigation to CBI.

In 2018  Munirathna was associated to Congress party, however, he joined the BJP later, and contested the by-election representing BJP, which he won.

The bench stated that CBI is not keen on taking up the investigation pertaining to the scam and also the report compiled by the police does not present any such lead for transferring the investigation to CBI. The court indicated that the additional commissioner of police discovered some lacunae in the investigation, a part of which has been resolved and remaining will be addressed for further investigation. 

The report clearly notes that some of the petitioners inclusive of the petitioners were not cooperating as required in the investigation.

The court said, “There are several allegations made in the writ petition. We cannot take allegations made in the petition for its face value as essentially it appears to us that there may be a political rivalry between the petitioner and the 5th resp (Munirathna). The investigating officers will have to bear in mind the allegations made by the petitioners. However, the petitioners also will have to cooperate with the investigators,” and further issued an order to the state police chief to select a senior officer for monitoring the investigation.

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