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IAS officer's death: Karnataka HC stays tabling of CID report
Bengaluru, March 22
The Karnataka High Court
on Sunday evening stayed the tabling of the CID's interim report on the
mysterious death of IAS officer D.K. Ravi by the state government in the
legislature on Monday till the inquiry was completed.
At a
special hearing at his residence here, Justice Adbul Nazeer directed the
state government and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) not to
make statements on the interim report or table it in the legislative
assembly.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had decided to table the
CID's interim report in the assembly on Monday and share with lawmakers
the findings of the investigation into Ravi's death, which police prime
facie said was a case of suicide.
The order was passed on an
emergency writ petition filed by the husband of a woman IAS officer whom
Ravi had reportedly called many times and sent messages to her mobile
phone before allegedly hanging himself from a ceiling fan at his
apartment here on March 16.
Passing the order under Article 226
of the Constitution, the judge also served an emergency notice to state
Chief Secretary Kaushik Mukherjee, the CID and the director general of
police (DGP) to appear in his court on Monday afternoon for further
hearing on the petition.
The writ petition against making the
inconclusive report public was moved to prevent damage to the reputation
of the lady officer and her family.
"We have told the court that
when the forensic science lab (FSL) findings in the case had not
reached the CID, it was not right to make public any report on it, which
may tarnish the image of the petitioner's wife," the petitioner's
counsel said in a statement.
There is also a Supreme Court ruling
against making interim reports public in such sensitive cases before
the investigation was completed.
The CID probe was ordered on
March 17, a day after 36-year-old Ravi was found dead in his apartment,
which police termed a case of suicide for "personal reasons".
The
2009 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer was additional
commissioner in the commercial tax department in the city since December
2014 after being transferred from Kolar district, about 100 km away,
where he as the as deputy commissioner had built a reputation of being
an upright officer for reining in the sand and land mafias.
Demanding
a CBI probe into Ravi's death, lawmakers of the opposition Bharatiya
Janata Party and the Janata Dal-Secular disrupted proceedings in both
the legislative assembly and the legislative council (upper house) since
March 17 and forced their adjournment till March 23.
Asserting
that his government was not trying to protect anyone or hide anything
from the public, Siddaramaiah said as the case was registered under a
specific section pertaining to suicide and not under murder or homicide,
the CID was told to probe it for the truth to come out early.
"We
are not going to protect anybody nor hide anything because we are also
keen that the truth about Ravi's death should come for the sake of
justice," Siddaramaiah said.
Sharing the concern of Ravi's
family, especially his parents, who also staged a protest at the state
secretariat on March 18 demanding a CBI probe into their son's death,
the chief minister said justice would be done at any cost.
"The
state government will do its best to suitably compensate the family for
the loss of Ravi, a bright officer, in mysterious circumstances," he
added.