Kannada actor Darshan gets bail, FIR lodges in alleged COVID scam

The Karnataka high court on Friday granted bail to Kannada actor Darshan Thoogudeepa, his friend Pavithra Gowda and seven others in the Renukaswamy murder case.The actor was arrested on June 11 this year for allegedly killing Renukaswamy, his fan, on June 8 for allegedly sending obscene messages to Gowda.On October 30, a single judge bench of justice Vishwajith Shetty granted interim conditional bail for six weeks to Darshan for treatment of a back ailment. The interim bail was extended on December 9 to facilitate his surgery.Darshan, Gowda, Anu Kumar, Lakshman M, V Vinay, Jagadeesh, Pradoosh S Rao and Nagaraju R had moved the high court seeking bail after the sessions court had rejected it. The court had earlier reserved its judgment in the matter on December 9. Darshan is currently hospitalised for back pain.
As per Bar & Bench report, Justice S Vishwajith Shetty also granted bail to five other accused in the case. The primary ground on which Justice Shetty granted bail to Darshan and his co-accused is the prosecution’s failure to provide them with the grounds of their arrest.In the present case, the Court noted, the prosecution had belatedly served grounds of arrest to the accused. Besides, it noted, the grounds of arrest instead of containing details specific to each accused were all identical.Justice Shetty had reserved orders on the bail applications filed by Darshan and his co-accused on December 9. The High Court also directed the Karnataka Director General of Police to devise a "uniform format" for communicating grounds of arrest in writing to any person arrested across the State.Reacting to the bail granted to the actor, Renukaswamy’s father Kashinath Shivanagouda said he has faith in judiciary.
Meanwhile, a case was registered at the Vidhana Soudha Police Station, Bengaluru on Friday in connection with alleged irregularities in COVID-19 management.The case was registered on a complaint by Medical Education Department Chief Accounts Officer Dr M Vishnu Prasad against Dr P G Girish, government officer Raghu G P, non gazetted officer in the Health and Family Welfare Muniraju N, two firms Laj Exports, Prudent Management Solutions, unknown public representatives, government officers and others.
Prasad in his complaint said that during the Covid-19 pandemic, Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement (KTPP) was misused while buying N95 Masks, Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) kits and other materials which were essential for the prevention of Covid-19 through the Medical Education Department and defrauded all the processes of the law.
The government officers along with other individuals connived and collected these essential materials and misappropriated hundreds of crores of rupees in the name of COVID management, he said. The action was taken on the basis of the recommendations of an inquiry panel headed by Justice John Michael D’Cunha, who said that large scale corruption has taken place in the COVID management.Chief Minister Siddaramaiah too had said a few weeks ago that the government would get the COVID-19 related irregularities investigated. 

(State Correpondent)