Just a day after two Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials were booked by the Karnataka police in connection with the Valmiki corporation scam case, the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday, July 23, stayed an investigation against them. Justice M Nagaprasanna stayed the First Information Report (FIR) against the two ED officers and subsequent proceedings against them. The matter will be heard again on August 21. Alleging harassment by central agencies, Karnataka Congress legislators criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for using ED to pressurise government officials and staged a protest in front of Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru. Several Congress leaders including CM Siddaramaiah, Deputy CM DK Shivakumar and Home Minister G Parameshwara participated in the protests.
The ED began an investigation on the grounds that a substantial amount of funds were misappropriated from the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation (KMVSTDC) to purchase liquor and luxury cars during the Lok Sabha elections.
The Karnataka government had announced a Special Investigation Team (SIT) which is already investigating the diversion of funds amounting to Rs 89 crore. In addition, the Central Bureau of Investigation has also registered a case and is investigating the crime. The BJP has repeatedly raised the matter in the ongoing Assembly sessions, but Siddaramaiah, while admitting to the illegal diversion of funds from the corporation account, has maintained bank and corporation officials had colluded and former Minister Nagendra had no knowledge of it. He also claimed that most of the diverted funds were accounted for.
A government official on Monday, July 22, filed a complaint that ED Deputy Director Manoj Mittal and Assistant Director Murali Kannan allegedly forced him to name Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the case. The government official had alleged that the officers told him the ED would help him in the case if he said that the directions to divert funds from the Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation were issued by Siddaramaiah, former minister B Nagendra and the Finance Department.
The Wilson Garden police registered an FIR on July 22 against the ED officials invoking sections 3(5) (criminal act done by several persons), 351 (2) (criminal intimidation) and 352 (provoke breach of peace) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita.
Stating that the law would take its course, Shivakumar said that he was also being targeted by the Union government and that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was harassing him. “A Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been formed and recoveries have been made. Unfortunately, ED has forced an officer to take the name of the CM and a minister. We will take action if any minister is involved. But it is our duty to protest against such actions by the ED,” he added.
Minister Priyank Kharge said that the BJP was doing a surgical strike on the Karnataka government. “We are not questioning the functioning of any authority, but government officials should not be pressured to name anyone. It is a scripted investigation,” he stated.
Allegations of a major financial scandal involving fraudulent transactions worth crores came to light following the death of an accounts superintendent from KMVSTDC on May 26. His handwritten six-page suicide note revealed the intense pressure he allegedly faced from his superiors to facilitate unauthorised fund transfers of over Rs 80 crore. Former Minister and Congress MLA B Nagendra was arrested on July 12, in connection with embezzling funds from the Valmiki corporation while he was serving as Minister.
