Karnataka HC judge seeks documents on ACB probe; ADGP moves court

The single-judge bench of Karnataka High Court overseeing the corruption case involving a Deputy Commissioner has expressed its dissatisfaction with the conduct of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and sought relevant documents from the agency, prompting its ADGP to move the court seeking expunction of the remarks made against him.

Justice HP Sandesh, who is monitoring the probe into the corruption case, had sought the B reports filed by the ACB into investigations done by it.

“The report you have given is not true. It doesn’t have the details of the B reports* filed by you. You have submitted the B report details for March and June. You have availed 819 search warrants and executed 28 such warrants. Deputy Commissioner was arrested after the court interfered. Why you have not conducted the raids earlier?” the judge asked the counsel of the ACB.

He said he had no personal enmity with the ACB ADGP Seemanth Singh but the ACB did not produce the details of B reports filed in 2022. “Ask your ADGP to ask his conscience,“ he told the ACB counsel.

The judge directed the CBI to produce the investigation report wherein the CBI searched the residence of ADGP Seemanth Kumar Singh when he was the Superintendent of Police (SP) of Bellary district, in connection with an illegal mining scam. He also directed the CBI SP to be present before the court next Thursday.

The judge then asked the court registrar to submit the details of B reports and posted the next hearing for July 11.

ACB ADGP moves HC

On the other hand, the Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Seemanth Kumar Singh moved the Karnataka High Court seeking expunction of the remarks levelled against him by Justice HP Sandesh.

Singh has also sought the quashing of an order by Justice Sandesh seeking his service records.

Advocate SS Srinivas Rao, appearing for Singh, said: “The petitioner has been dutifully discharging his duty and there was no basis whatsoever for the learned Single Judge to make unwarranted comments/observations against the petitioner.”

“The reputation built by the petitioner due to years of hard work has suffered a severe dent due to the remarks made by the learned single judge.”

Also read: ‘Threatened’ Karnataka HC judge: ‘Will bell the cat even at cost of my judgeship’

He pointed to Justice Sandesh’s remarks calling the ACB a “collection centre” and Singh a “tainted” officer, and highlighted that these were widely published in newspapers, electronic and social media. “The judge had traversed beyond the scope of the case,” Singh stated in his plea.

This comes days after Justice Sandesh revealed in court that he had been indirectly threatened with transfer for continuing to monitor the corruption cases handled by ACB.

Having been refused documents related to the ACB investigations, the judge had remarked that ACB ADGP was so powerful that he had been given an indirect threat for monitoring the cases.

Justice Sandesh, however, stood his ground and said that in public interest, he would monitor the cases. “I have no personal interest. Corruption is cancer, I will bell the cat, even at the cost of my judgeship. It is my duty to protect the independence of the judiciary also,” he had said.

He was hearing the bail application filed by one of the accused PS Mahesh, a deputy tahsildar, who was arrested for allegedly accepting a bribe of ₹5 lakh to get a favourable order from the Bengaluru Urban Deputy Commissioner’s office in a land dispute case.