The Karnataka High Court on Thursday abolished the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) formed by the Congress government headed by Siddaramaiah in 2016, and restored the powers of the Lokayukta police wing.
Allowing a batch of petitions challenging the creation of the ACB, a division bench comprising Justice B Veerappa and Justice K S Hemalekha said all cases pending before the ACB would now be transferred to the Lokayukta police wing. It termed the creation of ACB a “transgression by an executive administrative order to usurp the powers of Lokayukta”.
The court held that the state government was not justified in constituting the ACB with an executive government order when the Lokayukta Act was in force to tackle corruption.
The court also held that the state was not justified in issuing a notification dated March 19, 2016, superseding an earlier notification that gave the Lokayukta police investigative powers under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
“Since this court has quashed the impugned government order and impugned government notification dated 19-03-2016, the Anti-Corruption Bureau is abolished. But all the enquiries, investigations, and other disciplinary proceedings pending before the ACB will get transferred to the Lokayukta police,” the bench said.
The petitions were filed by the Advocates’ Association of Bangalore, Samaj Parivartana Samudaya, a Dharwad-based NGO, and others.
They had challenged the government’s decision to withdraw the investigative powers of the Lokayukta police, granted under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The government had transferred the powers to the ACB.
Advocate General Prabhuling K Navadgi, however, defended the action stating that the powers and functions of the Lokayukta and ACB are entirely different and that ACB is working under the provisions of the PC Act as a separate wing.
The then Siddaramaiah government had brought the newly formed ACB under the DPAR. The division bench observed that the Karnataka Lokayukta (KL) Act has been in force since January 15, 1986. The executive order issued by the government in 2016 was only to defunct the Lokayukta and has virtually defeated the very purpose for which the institution was constituted. The court observed that since its inception, the ACB has not registered any criminal case against ministers, MPs, MLAs or MLCs.
The court said that ACB, established by means of an executive order, has no legs to stand and cannot perform the duty of police unless it is established by means of a statute. “The constitution of ACB itself is shaky, opposed to the provisions of law and cannot perform the duty of the police. The police wing is an independent investigating agency and though the ACB purports to create an independent wing, it is controlled by the chief minister i.e., control of political executive. The ACB cannot constitute an independent police force when already the field is occupied by the Karnataka Police Act, 1963,” it said.