Bengaluru: The high court recently refused to quash proceedings against a sculptor in a cheating and criminal breach of trust case.
Krishna Naik, a resident of Bengaluru, was entrusted with the work of sculpting a bronze statue of Parashurama at a theme park in Karkala, Udupi district, in 2022.
The park was inaugurated on Jan 27, 2023, but the statue remained incomplete. After doubts were raised about the metal used for the statue, National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK), Surathkal, inspected it and submitted that the metal content was 80% copper and 20% zinc. Thereafter, one A Krishna Shetty filed a complaint against Naik, which he challenged in the high court.
According to Naik, he was accused of not shoddy work but GST fraud. He submitted that even now he is ready to complete the work if permitted and get the statue re-erected.
The complainant, however, argued that because of wrong alignment, the statue was brought down in January last year, and it is a clear case where Udupi Nirmithi Kendra, which entrusted the work to Naik, and the petitioner are hand in glove, which needs to be investigated.
After perusing the materials on record, Justice M Nagaprasanna said Naik took public money of Rs 1.2 crore as advance, yet the statue had to be brought down. "It is not understandable as to what sculpting the petitioner did. After about 12 months of de-erection of the statue, he still wants to work on the statue to bring it into proper form/alignment... It is fortunate that the statue did not fall after its inauguration, threatening the lives of common people. What is paid to the petitioner... is public money," the judge added.
"Therefore, this needs investigation in the least, as to why the petitioner has done a shoddy job, notwithstanding huge sums of money being transferred...," Justice Nagaprasanna further observed.