Probing Siddaramaiah: CS to brainstorm with ACB
City-based advocate's complaint against CM for flaunting expensive wrist watch puts govt in quandary
Bengaluru: The government, which is in a spot over the complaint filed against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah with the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), has asked the Chief Secretary to discuss the “ambiguities” involved with the bureau’s officials in a day or two.
“I have asked Chief Secretary Arvind Jadhav to hold a meeting wih ACB officials on whether or not it can investigate the complaint against the Chief Minister,” law and parliamentary affairs minister, T.B. Jayachandra told the DC on Tuesday.
Already under fire for constituting a “controlled” ACB and weaking the institution of the Lokayukta, which has for years taken on the corrupt in the state, the government is being tested sooner than it expected on the new agency’s reach with a city advocate, Nataraj Sharma, approaching it with a complaint against the Chief Minister himself for flaunting expensive watches.
Finding the executive orders constituting the ACB of little help in the matter, the officials concerned are not even sure whether to file a First Information Report on the complaint received.
Now the government is examining whether Cabinet approval is required to order an investigation against the Chief Minister, according to Mr Jayachandra, who dismissed all the fuss as “teething problems."
“Everything will be sorted out in a few days. Besides, we have not issued any guidelines for the ACB yet,” he noted. Recalling that he had spoken of the lack of clarity in the present orders constituting the ACB, on the floor of the legislature recently, the minister said the agency was “a new experiment,” and many issues had to be looked into for resolving the “ambiguities” involved.
While sources in the home department say Additional Director General of Police and head of ACB, K V Gagandeep, has gone on long leave as he is unhappy with his posting in the ACB, the minister was dismissive of such theories.
Asserting that the government had no intention of replacing the officer, he said he had merely taken a short leave of absence and would return to work soon.