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Law minister apologises to Karnataka lokayukta
Karnataka lokayukta Justice N Santosh Hegde on Monday accepted the apology of law minister M Veerappa Moily about some reported remarks against him and decided not to send a white paper on his performance to the minister.
Karnataka lokayukta Justice N Santosh Hegde on Monday accepted the apology of law minister M Veerappa Moily about some reported remarks against him and decided not to send a white paper on his performance to the minister.
Justice Hegde said he had decided to let the matter rest for now, which had flared up during the weekend, following some reported remarks by Moily, which he later denied in a letter to the lokayukta.
“Following Moily’s apology, I will now only make public the annual report of my performance,” Justice Hegde told HT.
In a letter to Justice Hegde on Sunday night, a copy of which was released to the media, Moily denied having ever stated that he (Hegde) was a tiger in the Supreme Court, but had now become a cat in Karnataka. The reported statement was made in the state Congress office at Bangalore in reference to the inquiries into allegations of corruption by the lokayukta.
“I clearly deny the statement and it is only a creation of the press…I feel the statement appearing in the press has strongly hurt you. I am extremely sorry for it and one such misquoted statement should not strain our relationship,” Moily wrote to Justice Hegde.
Moily had earlier reportedly said Karnataka lokayukta's action against the corrupt was “superficial” and that he could have done more.
Justice Hegde, regarded as an anti-corruption crusader, had hit back strongly and said, “I don't need a certificate from Veerappa Moily. It is enough if I get a certificate from the people of Karnataka....I think Moily may have forgotten that it was I who argued for him and got him out of the JMM scam (payoffs case) in a Delhi court in 1994 when he was the chief minister without charging a fee of one rupee.”
