The State government on Tuesday told the High Court of Karnataka that a fresh inquiry would be conducted against the director, Health and Family Welfare Services, by appointing a senior officer, for allowing private advertisements in COVID-19 awareness hoardings in violation of the court’s order.
An assurance on behalf of the government was given after a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Suraj Govindaraj said that the inquiry was not conducted in terms of the court’s September 25 directions. While declining to accept the manner of inquiry conducted by the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, to whom the government had entrusted the task, the inquiry report had given clean chit to the director without conducting the inquiry as per court order.
Observing that the director had started deliberations with a private advertising agency early in July much before the government had approached the court seeking permission to put up COVID-19 hoardings in the city, the Bench asked the government to inform the court the terms of reference of fresh inquiry to be conducted against the director.
The court on July 15 had given permission to the government to put up COVID-19 awareness hoardings sans private advertisement and revoked the permission on September 25 after it found that hoardings were put up with advertisements.
