Karnataka government on Monday transferred whistle blower officer DIG (Prisons) D Roopa who exposed the VIP treatment being given to AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala and kingpin of the stamp paper racket Abdul Karim Telgi in Parappana Agrahara Central Prison in Bengaluru to Commissioner of Traffic and Road Safety, Bengaluru.
Director General of Prisons HN Satyanarayana Rao, whom she had accused of accepting a bribe for favours to Sasikala was also shunted out. Rao, who is retiring this month, was not given any posting.
The transfer comes after Roopa submitted two separate reports to the Karnataka government last week exposing the irregularities in the prisons, including the VIP treatment given to the inmates for a price. Sasikala was provided with an inmate to cook food for her in a special kitchen beside a visitor's room with tables and chairs for her and visitors were set up, the reports said.
The reports also alleged that Sasikala, who was jailed for corruption, had paid Rs 2 crore for special treatment and Rao could have been a beneficiary as well.
In the second report, she alleged that the jail staff had erased the CCTV footage of the meetings at the behest of the seniors.
Later on in the day, controversial central prison superintendent Krishna Kumar, against whom Roopa had sought action, was also transferred out and replaced by R Anitha.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who had ordered an inquiry on July 13 by retired IAS officer Vinay Kumar, termed the transfer as an administrative process. "It is an administrative process. It is not necessary to disclose everything to the media," he told reporters.
DIG Roopa preferred not to respond to the queries of the media when she left her office on Monday evening.
Incidentally, Roopa, who took the charge as DIG (Prisons) only on June 21, was served a notice on July 14 for violating service rules for allegedly going to the media with her first report that triggered a huge controversy, leaving the state government red-faced. CM Siddaramaiah did not hide his displeasure over Roopa and said that it was absolutely against the service rules and inappropriate on her part to share such details with the media.
Unfazed by CM's criticism, Roopa denied divulging any details of her report to the media. "It was DGP (Prisons) who first talked about the report. Only after that I had given a clarification to the media. Even then, I didn't divulge anything about the report," she explained. Rao, however, dismissed Roopa's charge as baseless and wild. He said that no inmates were given any special treatment and Sasikala was also taking prison food like all other inmates.
The Opposition in Karnataka opposed her transfer. Former CM and Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy hit out at the Congress government for protecting corrupt officers. "I expected this to happen last week itself. It seems that the government wants to protect the illegal activities and is here to protect the convicts," he said. BJP's Suresh Kumar termed the issue of special treatments to the inmates on a price as a dangerous one and sought a judicial probe.
