Karnataka Lokayukta hit by corruption charges

Sonia Narang, a superintendent of police recently appointed in the Lokayukta, wrote about an incident where an executive engineer with the zilla panchayat was allegedly summoned to the Lokayukta office by unidentified persons and threatened with a corruption case unless he managed to cough up Rs 1 crore.

[related-post]

According to the letter, Krishnamurthy, an executive engineer with a zilla panchayat, was threatened by a person who claimed to be a joint commissioner in the Lokayukta and who used SP Narang’s name in his threats.

The executive engineer was reportedly told that his name was on a short list of persons the Lokayukta was planning to investigate but if he paid Rs one crore, the case would go away.

The executive engineer subsequently approached the police wing of the Lokayukta and shared the incident with them, stated the letter.

Based on the statement given by the executive engineer, the Lokayukta SP said Krishnamurthy was summoned to the agency’s office on May 5 by one Krishna Rao. He was allegedly told by Rao that there were many complaints against him of acquiring illegal wealth through irregularities in the execution of civic work, under the MP and MLA Local Area Development schemes. Krishnamurthy was allegedly threatened that his residence would be raided soon and he must shell out Rs 1 crore to stay out of the Lokayukta probe. “Krishnamurthy told the person that he is free to register an FIR against him and raid his house. The person then scaled down his demand to Rs 50 lakh,” states SP Sonia Narang’s letter. The man then made a phone call to an associate, apparently telling him to send the file on Krishnamurthy to Narang, states the letter.

After promising to pay a “convenient” amount, Krishnamurthy left the meeting and approached the police brass in the Lokayukta.