Karnataka: Minister's clerk collected Rs 25.76 lakh from 4 civil contractors

A clerk working in the office of the Karnataka Backward Class Welfare Minister, from whom an amount of Rs 25.76 lakh was confiscated at the state secretariat here, has claimed that he had collected the sum from four civil contractors, police said on Tuesday.

S G Mohan Kumar, an employee of the Mysuru-based Sri Chamarajendra Biological Garden, was deputed to the office of C Puttarangashetty in the Vidhana Soudha. He was a typist but was also functioning as the minister's personal assistant. On January 4, the Vidhana Soudha police arrested him when he was stepping out of the secretariat with the cash in the evening. According to police sources, Kumar told the investigators that he had collected Rs 3.6 lakh from one Ananthu on January 3 in the Vidhana Soudha and kept it in the office.

The next day, he had collected Rs 15.9 lakh from a contractor identified as Nandu from a spot near the legislator's house, Rs 2 lakh from one Srinidhi in front of the Karnataka High Court and Rs 4.26 lakh from contractor Krishnamurthy in the Vidhana Soudha. The Anti-Corruption Bureau, which has been assigned to probe the matter, carried out searches at his residences Tuesday. Hard disk and certain documents have been seized, the ACB said in a statement.

The seizure of cash from the clerk attached to a minister's office has snowballed into a major controversy with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a senior leader of the ruling coalition partner Janata Dal (Secular) demanding the resignation of the Congress minister in order to pave the way for a fair investigation into the incident. Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy has said he never interferes in a police probe to protect anybody. Denying any link with the case, Puttarangashetty has said when the cash was seized, he was not in Bengaluru.

He has also said that a detailed investigation into the incident would reveal the truth. The probe into the incident had been handed over to the Anti-Corruption Bureau, the police said.

(With inputs from agencies.)