FIR against RTI activist who took Siddaramaiah to court in MUDA case

Siddaramaiah and three others were booked by the Lokayukta police on charges of corruption, cheating and forgery in connection with the allotment of 14 MUDA housing sites to Siddaramaiah’s wife in 2021. The grounds for the Lokayukta police probe were set as private complainants Krishna, T J Abraham and Pradeep Kumar had obtained the governor’s approval, which, in turn, was backed by the high court.

In the FIR, the woman accused Krishna and others of attacking her, pulling her clothes, verbally abusing her, and issuing death threats while she was returning from court on July 18, 2024. Her complaint also states that Krishna, along with her father-in-law, mother-in-law, and brother-in-law, has been harassing her over a property dispute.

This dispute currently under litigation reportedly involves claims over the death benefits of the woman’s late husband, who passed away in 2020, and her jewellery. Krishna is listed as the fourth accused in the case and has been accused of assaulting her and making threatening remarks towards her and her mother.

The police have filed the case under sections 85 (Husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty), 126(2) (wrongful restraint), 74 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 352 (individual intentionally insults another person), 351(2) (criminal intimidation), 79 (insult the modesty of a woman through words, gestures, sounds, or any object meant to be heard or seen by the woman), and 3(5) (joint criminal liability when two or more individuals act with a common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

“This is an attempt to suppress my fight against corruption. Even if I am jailed, my battle will continue,” Krishna told reporters. He added that he has written to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to investigate corruption within MUDA, alleging over Rs 5,000 crore has been misappropriated.

He also said that he plans to file a formal complaint with the ED and has already petitioned the court for a CBI investigation into MUDA’s site-allotment irregularities since 2015.