Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah moves Supreme Court against High Court's refusal to quash FIR against him

New Delhi, February 14

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has moved the Supreme Court challenging a Karnataka High Court order dismissing his plea to quash an FIR lodged against him for “blocking roads and causing trouble to commuters” in connection with a 2022 protest march.

The Congress leader has challenged the February 6 order of the High Court directing him to appear before a special court on March 6. The High Court had also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on him as well as Congress general secretary and Karnataka in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala, state ministers MB Patil and Ramalinga Reddy.

The protest march organised to lay siege to the then chief minister Basavaraj Bommai’s residence in Bengaluru, demanding the resignation of the then rural development and panchayat raj minister KS Eshwarappa after a contractor, Santosh Patil, died by suicide accusing Eshwarappa of demanding 40 per cent commission on a public work in his village.

Stating that none of the “quintessential” ingredients of the offences alleged was made out, Siddaramaiah has said in his plea that the proceedings are an abuse of the process of law and would lead to undue harassment.

He sought to emphasise that there was no allegation that the protest led to any violence or use of criminal force to pose an imminent threat to the public at large or to anyone, including the minister

“The incident complained lasted for almost an hour and no violent action or use of criminal force has been alleged against any of the members of the procession, it is thus submitted that the prosecution cannot be allowed to continue on such frivolous incidents where no allegation of criminality has been attributed to any of the members of the assembly,” the CM submitted.