Major Scandal In Bengaluru: IAS Officers Accused Of Demanding 15% Bribe In Garbage Tenders Case

Bengaluru: In a major embarrassment to the state government, two senior IAS officers have been accused of demanding 15% bribe to pass the garbage collection tenders and the garbage contractors' association has approached the court to initiate action against them.

In his petition before Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum of Karnataka High Court, the Bengaluru Mahanagara Swacchata & Lorry Malikara Hagoo Guttigedarara Sangha General Secretary S N Balasubramaniam has sought the court direction to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT) conduct a thorough investigation against the two officials.

The petition has been filed against Bengaluru Solid Waste Management Ltd., Chief Executive Officer Karee Gowda and Urban Development Department Secretary Tushar Girinath. When the matter came up for hearing before Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum, the counsel for petitioner P Prasanna Kumar made these allegations.

The petitioner had submitted bids for the tenders floated for garbage clearances of Shanthinagar tender package 2, C V Raman Nagar package 1 and Dasarahalli package 3 and were accepted by the accused. On March 10, the accused Karee Gowda had summoned the petitioner to his office and advised to clear some obligations in the tender and threatened that Tushar Girinath will not clear the tenders if the demands were not met. He demanded a 15% cut for the contract period of seven years to the department and government, failing which, the other tenders of the petitioner would also be cancelled.

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On March 11, the petitioner had lodged a complaint with the Chief Secretary. On March 25, for failing to fulfil their demands, the government cancelled the old tender and floated new tenders. The petition requested the court to direct the government to register FIR against the two officials and constitute SIT to investigate the matter.

The petitioner's advocate also told the court that the petitioner will submit a sworn affidavit to the court regarding the demand for bribe.

However, Advocate General Shashikiran Shetty submitted that the allegations were false and both officers were honest. Besides, Bengaluru Solid Waste Management CEO Karee Gowda was not in Bengaluru on March 10, when the petitioner said that he had a meeting with him. As a matter of fact, he had gone to Delhi for an official meeting and he even has boarding passes of the plane in which he travelled.