BENGALURU: The state government informed the Karnataka High Court on Friday that it has initiated action against 2,245 investigating officers, after reviewing 1,73,366 acquittal cases from 2015 to March 2019, for lapses on their part. The report with the said statistics was filed before the division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Mohammad Nawaz, while hearing a PIL filed by advocate S Umapathi seeking to implement directions of the Supreme Court.

The state contended that the allegations of the petitioner that the directions of the apex court were false and baseless. It explained that the three-level acquittal review committees were effectively functioning as per the government order. The SC had directed the state to undertake a review of all acquittal cases covered under special acts, in which glaring omissions were observed during the trial with respect to investigation and prosecution.

In accordance with the state order, regarding the three-level committees, the Director General and Inspector General of Police communicated the same to all the unit officers by issuing a memo dated November 12, 2014. A detailed memo dated February 5, 2015 was also issued to form the committees at their units.