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The High Court of Karnataka has set aside an order passed suo motu by a special court discharging around 450 present and retired officials and engineers of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), and private contractors in the 115 criminal cases booked against them in the alleged multi-crore misappropriation of funds case in execution of civil works during the period from 2005-06 to 2011-12.
Justice H.P. Sandesh passed the order while allowing a batch of petitions filed by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which had probed the cases and filed charge sheets. The CID had questioned the November 2023 order passed by the special court.
Earlier discharged
The special court had discharged the accused officers, engineers, and contractors mainly on the ground that the CID had failed to produce the original report of the BBMP’s Technical Vigilance Committee Cell (TVCC), which was the primary source for registering criminal complaints against the accused persons. The alleged misappropriated amount in these 115 cases was around ₹31 crore, and around 730 persons were named as accused persons in these cases with several officials and contractors arraigned as accused in multiple cases.
The High Court pointed out that the special court’ssuo motu decision to discharge the accused is unknown to law as the latter had already dismissed applications filed by the accused seeking discharge, and had framed charges against the accused, and in some cases even the trial had commenced through the process of examination of witnesses.
Pointing out that the trial court had no power to discharge accused after rejecting their applications for discharge as the next option available in law for the trial court is either to acquit or convict the accused, the High Court said that trial court committed an error in interdicting the criminal proceedings that too in the absence of application in this regard by the accused persons.
Original report
The special court had discharged them after ascertaining from the Chief Engineer of the BBMP that the original report of TVCC on misappropriation of funds is not available. However, the High Court noted that the report of TVCC was only a source for registering the case, and the trial court can proceed against the accused persons based on secondary evidence, and materials collected and submitted by the investigating agency along with the chargesheets to establish the charges against the accused persons.
While ordering the continuation of criminal proceedings against the discharged accused persons, the High Court directed the trial court to consider the sanction given by the government subsequently for the prosecution of several accused officials and commence the process against such accused from the stage of taking cognisance. The proceedings cannot be continued against officials in cases where the government refused to grant sanction for their prosection, the High Court said.
Published – March 25, 2025 09:42 pm IST
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The Hindu
