The High Court of Karnataka has quashed criminal proceedings initiated against senior IPS officer Alok Kumar by a special court in 2022 without sanction for prosecuting him in a bribery complaint linked to a criminal case registered on the incident of a quarrel between the managing staff of Orange Bar and a group of customers in Vyalikaval police limits in Bengaluru during 2014.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while allowing a petition filed by Mr. Kumar, who had questioned the legality of the special court’s December 13, 2022, order of taking cognisance of the offence against him.
“Since there is no sanction accorded to prosecute the petitioner prior to the order of the learned sessions judge taking cognisance of the offence, I deem it appropriate to obliterate the proceedings against the petitioner, reserving liberty to the special court to proceed against the petitioner only after a valid sanction from the hands of the competent authority is placed before it,” Justice Nagaprasanna observed.
The High Court pointed out that Mr. Kumar was not named as an accused either in the first information report (FIR) registered in 2015 on the complaint of alleged bribe demanded by the police officers attached to Viyalikaval police station for closure of the criminal case registered related to the quarrel in the bar or in the ‘B’ report filed by the Lokayukta police on the complaint of bribery.
One Mallikarjun B.M. alias ‘fighter Ravi’, whose name was in the rowdy sheet, had lodged a complaint of bribery before the Lokayukta police. Mallikarjun along with his associates had engaged in a quarrel with the managing staff of the bar in August 2014 and a criminal case was registered by the Viyalikaval police in this regard.
It was alleged by Mallikarjun that initially some officers of Vyalikaval police station demanded ₹5 lakh from him as a bribe for closing the case related to the quarrel in the bar and later they demanded ₹1 crore as a bribe, claiming that Mr. Kumar had made such a demand.
However, the special court had taken cognisance of the offence even against Mr. Kumar by rejecting the ‘B’ report filed by the Lokayukta police by closing the case due to lack of evidence against the two police personnel named in the FIR.
