Panel constituted to probe bribery charges against Karnataka Chief Minister wound up

The State Government has wound up the Commission of Inquiry set up to probe the Rs 1.5 billion bribery charges against Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy in the mining scam.

The Commission of Inquiry, headed by former chief justice of Haryana and Madhya Pradesh High Courts U L Bhat, had been constituted seven months ago in the wake of a loud clamour for investigation into the mining scam after BJP MLC Janardhan Reddy accused Kumaraswamy and two of his cabinet colleagues of receiving a bribe of Rs 1.5 crore.

The Karnataka Cabinet, which decided to draw curtains on the Commission of Inquiry, also decided to refer the matter to the Lokayukta or the provincial ombudsman.

Justifying the Government decision, Karnataka’s Home Minister M P Prakash said the Government had asked the Commission, at the time of setting it up, to submit an interim report in two months and the final report in six months time. “The Commission has failed to produce any report even after seven months. The entire case will now be handed over to Lokayukta for investigation”, Prakash said.

Ahead of the Government’s decision to wind up the panel, U L Bhat had resigned citing Government’s unfavourable response to his request for extending the term of the Commission by six more months.

Prakash said the Commission could not hold hearings in the case on account of non-cooperation from the complainant Janardhan Reddy, who had expressed his “no-confidence” in the judicial probe.

But, Janardhan Reddy told a separate press conference in Bellary that U L Bhat had resigned from the Commission due to non-cooperation from the Chief Minister himself. Reddy, who has moved the Supreme Court seeking a CBI probe into the “murky” mining scam, dared the Chief Minister to order a CBI probe into the matter.

Meanwhile, the Congress leaders met in Bangalore yesterday and decided to press for a CBI probe into the mining scam. Apart from Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, the names of Home Minister M P Prakash and Forest Minister C Chennigappa had also figured in the scam.