‘Why Did State Cabinet Withdraw 62 Criminal Cases on BJP MPs & MLA’s’ Questions Former MLA J R Lobo
Mangaluru: Addressing the media persons during a press meet held at District Congress Office Hall, former MLA of Mangaluru South Constituency J R Lobo said, “Why the state cabinet withdrew 62 criminal cases against BJP leaders including, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, Law Minister Madhuswamy, Tourism Minister C T Ravi, MLA Hallapa Achar, MP Prathap Simha, Agriculture Minister B C Patil, MP Sumalatha Ambareesh, and many others. I urge on behalf of the Congress party, that the High Court and the Supreme Court should intervene on the withdrawal of 62 criminal cases against BJP leaders.
Lobo further said,“ Based on the recommendation of Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai, who headed a sub-committee, it was decided to withdraw the cases against BJP leaders, while Law Minister Madhuswamy said the cases were withdrawn on public interest and to reduce the burden on the court. The law minister has also said that if Pratap Simha or Renukacharya fight for a public cause, cases against them will also be withdrawn. This is ridiculous and doesn’t make any sense”.
“This shows that the BJP government administration has one law for representatives of people, and a different law for the common man. We demand that the cases withdrawn should be proceeded as per legal procedures and that the High Court and Supreme Court should intervene in bringing a stay order on these 62 cases withdrawn and also a thorough enquiry should be done in this regard. The government is meant to protect people, but here we have a BJP government protecting their own leaders by withdrawing criminal cases filed against them,” added J R Lobo.
It should be noted that on 3 September 2020, The Karnataka government has decided to withdraw 62 criminal complaints against its MPs and MLAs. Based on the recommendation of Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai, who headed a sub-committee, cases against several sitting ministers, including the Law, Tourism and Agriculture ministers, will be dropped as well. The cases that are being dropped are those against Karnataka Minister JC Madhuswamy and Tourism Minister CT Ravi. They both were facing charges of rioting, unlawful assembly and wrongful restraint.
The case against Anand Singh, rebel Congress leader who last year switched to join the BJP, has also been dropped. Anand Singh was booked in 2017 for attacking a Hospete Taluk office and was charged with criminal intimidation, assaulting a public servant, and damaging public property. The case against Mysuru MP Pratap Simha, who was booked for trying to run over a policeman, has also been dropped. The policeman had tried to stop him during a Hanuman Jayanthi procession in December 2017 and had been injured then. Simha had been booked for overspeeding and for voluntarily causing hurt to a public servant.
Other leaders against whom cases are being dropped include Mandya independent MP Sumalatha Ambarish, BJP MLA fromYelburga Hallapa Achar, BJP MLA from Honnalli and CM’s political secretary MP Renukacharya. The proposal to drop these cases was opposed by the Director-General and Inspector General of Police(DG-IGP), the Director of Prosecution and Government Litigation and the Law Department but despite this, the government has decided to go ahead with it.
The BJP government has refused allegations of ulterior motive behind the move and have claimed that it is ‘routine’ and the leaders had cases filed against them for taking up ‘public issues.’ A couple of days ago, the government also decided to drop cases against several protestors, most of whom are part of farmers’ groups and had taken part in protests on the Mahadayi issue.