HC to govt: See if action can be taken against BDA chief

BENGALURU: A communication said to be issued by the BDA Commissioner to officials not to appear before any investigating agency and provide documents without his prior permission is now before the Karnataka High Court. Observing that the state cannot be a silent spectator when the court recorded prima facie findings about the BDA Commissioner’s conduct, the Court on Wednesday directed the government to examine whether action can be initiated against him under the BDA Act.

A division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice S Vishwajith Shetty passed the order after going through the statement of objections filed by the BDA Commissioner to the PIL filed by S Arunachalam, questioning the validity of the communication.

The petitioner questioned the ‘office note’ dated July 8, 2020 issued by the Commissioner stating that BDA staff and officials should not produce documents or appear before the investigating agencies such as the Anti Corruption Bureau and Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force, when called for inquiry, without his prior permission.The bench called the note an attempt by the commissioner to interfere with investigation, and stayed the English version of the note till further orders. The Kannada version was stayed during the previous hearing.

The bench was unhappy with the BDA for extracting the same tone and tenor from the Kannada note in the English version submitted to the court and also about no specific stand taken by the state though direction was issued at the last hearing.The BDA counsel said the sum and substance of the Kannada note was retained in the English version to maintain similarity. The intention of the communication was not to interfere with the investigation but only to ensure prior information to the Commissioner. 

Fourth round of auction fetches over D100 crore 
Bengaluru: As many as 332 of the 445 sites were sold during BDA’s fourth round of auction. The bids helped BDA earn upto `109.37 crore. According to a release, 1,790 bidders took part and 99 sites did not find any bidders. Out of a proposed bid amount of `171.95 crore, `281.32 crore was realised, it said. While 17 sites were cancelled due to the poor bids they received, three were cancelled as they did not fetch the expected amount. ENS