The magistrate court today rejected the bail application filed by the lawyers of BJP MLA Y Sampangi, who was arrested by the Lokayukta slueths for allegedly accepting a bribe from a businessman yesterday. Sampangi could not appear before the court today due to ill health, according to the sources. He was admitted to Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology after he complained of chest pain yesterday.
The magistrate court today rejected the bail application filed by the lawyers of BJP MLA Y Sampangi, who was arrested by the Lokayukta slueths for allegedly accepting a bribe from a businessman yesterday. Sampangi could not appear before the court today due to ill health, according to the sources. He was admitted to Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology after he complained of chest pain yesterday.
u00a0u00a0 Sampangi has to be in the judicial custody till February 3, 2009, if he fails to appear before the magistrate tomorrow.
u00a0 This is the first time that an MLA has been arrested while accepting bribe, according to Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde. He hopes he can be prosecuted for seeking "return of investment made during elections".u00a0
"Since he is an MLA, the speaker has to give sanction to go ahead with the prosecution. I was a presiding judge in a Madhya Pradesh case where we had ruled that the speaker should give the sanction. In case of a cabinet minister, the governor should give the sanction independently," said Hegde.
u00a0u00a0 He is confident that the evidence he had would be enough to prosecute the MLA. "We have the voice recording taken by the complainant on his phone. Besides that, we have a witness to testify when Sampangi took the bribe. Soon after he got the bribe, Sampangi called the KGF police and asked them to close the case. This clearly indicates that he took money in return for an official favour," he said.
The Lokayukta is hopeful that during investigation, they will get more evidence. "This is just one case where we have caught Sampangi. There may be other cases which may come out during investigations."
Along with Sampangi, circle inspector and sub inspector of Andersonpet police station in KGF were also arrested. The MLA was booked under Sections 7 and 12 of Prevention of Corruption Act. The Lokayukta had caught former Karwar MLA, again from the BJP, Gangadhar Bhat. He had asked for commission from a Public Works Department (PWD) contractor, but he was not caught accepting bribe.
ADVERTISEMENT
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
