 Hello and welcome to this special program for NewsClick and The Wire. I am Paranjoy Gohatakurtha and with me here I have Justice N. Santosh Hegde. He is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India and he is a former Lokayukta or the people's ombudsman of Karnataka. Thank you so much Justice Hegde for giving us your time. When you submitted your final report on the iron ore mining scandal in Bellari on the 26th of July 2011, a few days before you retired. After that the then Chief Minister B.S. Yadu Rappa he had to resign his position soon thereafter on the 31st of July and in October that year he became perhaps the first serving Chief Minister of India who was behind bars. He was behind bars for 23 days. Now the same Mr. Yadu Rappa is the Chief Ministerial Candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Assembly elections which are going to take place in May. How do you react to this fact? I feel very sad because of the fact I thought there was a foolproof case against him and I didn't expect what happened in the trial court in the first instance. I'm not very sure whether they filed an appeal against that order or not. We had enough proof that he had received nearly 20 crore rupees from a company called South West Mining Company which had absolutely no capital. It received one day 20 crore rupees starting from the account of General Steel Thornagal Bellari which moved into three or four accounts in Benami Names and it came and landed in the account of South West Mining Company. Out of that 20 crores, 10 crore rupees by check was donated, perpetually donated to an education trust in a neighbouring district called Shimoga district which was wholly owned by Mr. Yadu Rappa and his family. For a public servant to receive such a huge gift according to me is contrary to law, the disciplinary rules as well as the fact that the file was then pending with Mr. Yadu Rappa as a Chief Minister. He was having the mining portfolio with him and he received 10 crore rupees donation which according to me per se shows that money was paid not as a donation but for considerations for showing favours in the mining application. Of course, a mining application was not granted thereafter because the matter was being investigated by me. Now you had, when you were the Lokayukta, you had pointed out of how Mr. Yadu Rappa's two sons, Raghavendra and Vijendra, they had received a huge amount of money and in the region of about 10 crore rupees which was donated to this educational trust run by his family, it was also found out that the same company, JSW, which is headed by Mr. Sajjan Jindal, spent 20 crore to purchase the land about which you talked about. Oh no, land I am yet to talk about. This is a different transaction altogether. There is a place called Raxinahalli near Bangalore, Whitefield where seven acres of land was acquired by the Government of Karnataka some years earlier and compensation was paid, the position was taken, the revenue records showed that the land belonged to the government but it was not utilised. Mr. Yadu Rappa as a Chief Minister denotified that seven acres of land which according to me is contrary to the judgement of the Supreme Court as also the law and out of that seven acres was purchased by a minister in his cabinet called Mr. Krishna Shetty. Krishna Shetty perpetually sold one acre of land by a registered sale deed for a concentration of nearly 40 lakhs or so to Yadu Rappa's son-in-law and two sons. That very land which they purchased for maybe about 40 lakhs of rupees immediately thereafter was purchased by Southwest Mining Company for a concentration of another 10 crores of rupees. I mean value cannot just go up like that. Obviously this is a transaction in my opinion which of course is not accepted by the Court is a consideration for something else other than the real market value but it was a consideration for Mr. Yadu Rappa to pass a favourable order in the mining application that is pending before him. Just a second, you know what were the circumstances under which the former Chief Minister Mr. Yadu Rappa was acquitted in October 2016. The CBI, the Central Bureau of Investigation took its own time appealing. It took eight months. Finally, you know what we found is that the judge who had acquitted him even the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Karnataka government even recommended that an investigation be launched against him way back in September 2017 but you see how was what you describe as a foolproof case of corruption against Mr. Yadu Rappa and his sons. How did the entire matter play out in different courts of law and he was given virtually a clean shit? Well, it's rather difficult to comment on the judgment of a court by making an acquisition of corruption or something but I can only say that I cannot accept this judgment because the money is received by Mr. Yadu Rappa way by way of a check so there is no dispute that he received that money. There is also no dispute that there was an application pending for grant of mining license before the Chief Minister was also the Minister for Mining which in my opinion by itself proves that the money is not gone as a consideration for the purchase of a one acre of land or for donation to his family education trust. Obviously, it is clear to my mind at least that this was a legal gratification given by the South West Mining Company to get a mining license. I look at it from that point of view. I have not read the judgment of the trial court but I just can't reconcile myself to the fact that these two transactions have been had the acceptance of judicial acceptance. You know, just to say, how do I go back to the same question I asked you earlier. Today, the Bharati Janta Party under Mr. Narendra Modi is in power in Delhi and the BJP, I mean, look, you, we all know you were the son of Justice K.S. Hegde. He is a former Supreme Court judge like you. He had been superseded in 1993 by, sorry, I beg your pardon, 73 by Justice A. N. Ray in after the Keshavananda Bharati case, the very well-known case about how much the constitution, how much parliament, the parliament couldn't change the basic structure of the constitution. Your father was a speaker of the Lok Sabha. He was one of the founding members of the BJP. And I'll recall another incident to you. On the 23rd of June 2010, you were so unhappy when the Karnataka government transferred an officer of the forest department, or rather didn't transfer, suspended him. He was deputy conservator of forest, Mr. Gokul, R. Gokul, that you resigned. And finally, it had the top leadership of the BJP, including Mr. L. K. Adwani. He persuaded you to take back your resignation. So how do you see that the same party just has completely forgotten all the evidence that you put out in these voluminous reports and you are carrying them with your ideas? I can show this here, where you said you have enough evidence to show and you have just outlined in graphic detail how this person received illegal gratifications. Well, I can't repeat that sentence again because of the fact that the matter is subjudice, but I would like to tell you one thing and all. Yes, one of my officers who was working with me in the Lokaikta on deputation called Mr. Gokul was suspended because he didn't obey the instructions of a minister to come and see him at a place which was owned or possessed by a person against whom the Karnataka Lokaikta had filed a charge sheet against that company. So he said, I'm not coming to that building, call me anywhere else, you know. But the minister didn't like it, so consequently he was suspended. So when I asked the chief secretary how can you keep him under suspension when he is working under me without consulting me, he said the audits have been passed, I can't do anything about that. So I thought if I can't protect an officer who was working under my instructions being suspended, it's not worthwhile staying in the office and I resigned. Well, many people came and asked me to take back my resignation, but I didn't agree to that and all. Then one day Mr. L.K. Adwani whom I consider as equivalent to my father with whom I had spent a lot of time when he was in jail, I was appearing for the detainees at that point of time during the emergency. I was a lawyer for Mr. Vajpayee, then Mr. Adwani and Esen Mishra and Madhu Dandavati. And I was also a lawyer for Mr. Ramakrishna Higde who was in jail, Mr. Devigawda and everything. I got an opportunity to fight their case. In that background, I had come to know Mr. Adwani pretty well. And Adwani was one person who was closely connected to my family. When my father died, he came to a village to participate in the grief in which we were at that point of time. So I have a very high regard for Mr. L.K. Adwani. So Mr. Adwani went a telephone to me and said, Sandosh, you're doing a good job, don't resign. I said, sir, how can I continue to be in office when I can't protect my own officers? I'm not there only to make this thing for myself. He said, what is it that you want? I said, I want the suspension to be revoked and I will take back my resignation. And that was done. Mr. Gadkari was the President of All India BJP at that point of time. He and Mr. Edutapa came to my residence and gave me the letter of withdrawal of resignation. And I am rather the suspension and I withdrew my resignation for that purpose. I couldn't have continued if that nurse's suspension order was not revoked. You know, I want you to again take you back to what happened after that. The Anti-Corruption Bureau in the Karnataka government, they launched an investigation against the CBI judge, R.B. Dharmagaudar, in September 2017. He is the same person who had acquitted Mr. Edutapa. Now, what you found is that something very, very unusual has been happening. The advocate, Mr. H.M. Siddharth, who had represented Mr. Edutapa and his family members and his sons, he was actually caught by the staff of the Vidhansaba, Vidhansodam, with 2 crore rupees in cash in October 2016. And then earlier, we also found that, you know, there have been a number of attempts made to bribe judges. And in fact, after Gali Janadhan Reddy was jailed and he was in Chanchalgoda jail in Hyderabad in July 2012, the law court judge, Mr. T. Lakshmi Narasimha Rao, he was arrested and he was jailed because, and in his confessional statement, he said that a relative and associates of Gali Janadhan Reddy had offered him 100 crore rupees to secure bail. Now, what does this tell us about the way our criminal justice system works? It's very unfortunate that the confidence that people repose in the judiciary right now, I think it's really, really a sad state of affairs that we do hear about corruption in judiciary, which is an admitted fact nobody can deny that and all. These instances which you mentioned have appeared in the newspaper. I have read them also, which gives room to think that the judgments delivered in those circumstances may not be correct judgment. You know, we've seen that after your report came out, there were three former chief ministers whose record you were very, very critical of. And it's not just Mr. Yadurappa, you were critical of the late Mr. Dharam Singh, the former chief minister, Mr. H.D. Kumaraswamy, all of them you found were in some way or the other involved in these illegal activities in this illegal manner in which I know it was mining. So in that sense, your report was not partisan. You were, in a sense, indicting the entire political class. I wouldn't say that I was indicting the political class, but I had an opportunity of inquiring into the actions of these three chief ministers and I've given voluminous evidence to show why I have implicated them in this matter. Well, the acquittal of Mr. Yadurappa gives me a lot bit of sadness and I don't even know whether the state government of Karnataka has filed a preferred appeal or not in the matter or maybe there's investigating agencies have filed a not-in-all. But one thing is certain that today money plays a very big role in all the actions and inactions in the part of the government, I think. I want to draw your attention to the report that you presented where you talked about the illegal export of iron ore from Bellica report by Adani Enterprises and you said that there were incriminating documents which suggest that they had made illegal payments to the director of the port, to customs officials, to police personnel, but eventually it didn't stand up in a court of law. The Supreme Court, the special investigative team of the Karnataka Lokayukta said no case had been made out and the CBI and the Lokayukta eventually filed closure reports against Adani Enterprises. Why do I bring out this case? Because the head of the Adani group, Mr. Gautam Adani, is perceived to be very close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Well, let me give you the background of these cases. I have not studied the B report filed in the case of Adani, but I have studied the case pertaining to one Dodanavar, another company which is similar to what has been alleged against Adani's. On February 19th and 20th of 2010, Lokayukta officers raided a company called Dodanavar and they seized certain documents from the computer and hard copies also were there and from which it was found that they have exported huge quantities of iron ore without permission of excavation, storage, transportation and export. Without any one of these documents, they had exported huge quantity of iron ore. Then when we investigated, we gave a copy of the investigation to the director of mines saying that, look, this is what has happened in the case and all. Please look into it and all. Then from records, now I find out the director of mines at that point of time issues them a notice saying that you have exported so much iron ore without paying the royalty, therefore they are caused loss to the state. This was sometime in the month of March 2010. In the month of June 2010, the Dodanavaran company goes and pays all the monies perpetually due as a royalty to the government of Karnataka. Now royalty is only 27 rupees for metric ton. Whereas at the point of time they were exporting this iron ore one metric ton for 6500 to 7000 rupees. Now it was easy for them to pay 27 rupees and be done with it. But our charges were not that they cheated the government of the money after our charges were of stolen property. They have purchased or excavated illegally mined iron ore. They have stored it which is controlled by the Mining Act and Rules. They have transported it contrary to the Mining Act and Rules and have exported it also. They have all separate offenses. But the investigating agency goes and we filed the charge sheet of FIR. Investigating agency goes and gives a B report saying that now that they have paid the money to the government. What is a B report? B report is no case made out. I see. Then you think the Adani Enterprises case is somewhat similar? Yes that was I was told and I have not read it but I was told it is a similar thing and they paid the royalty that is due to the government and the B report is filed and the court accepted the B report. That is the illegal action of extraction, storage, transportation and exploitation. Now suppose hypothetically there is a BJP government that comes to power in Karnataka and we will know on the 15th of May. Suppose hypothetically Mr. Yadu Rappa becomes the next Chief Minister of Karnataka. What would this mean for the investigations, the judicial processes that would follow? I don't know since they have filed a B report it is for the investigating agencies to investigate, investigating agency itself has filed a B report so they can't challenge it now and all. Now it is left to others who have some public interest involved in it and all to challenge that order by saying you know this is incorrect because mere compensating the royalty part of it doesn't exculpate them from the other charges of illegal mining. All these are very serious charges under the Minds and Minds Development Act you know. And therefore they ought to have been considered the different action under the different provisions of law. But merely saying you have been compensated it's like a thief when caught says I will pay for the value of the stolen goods. Can you get out of the theft charge? Okay, tell me do you believe the CBI is under tremendous political pressure? I wouldn't want to say that because it has been named as when Congress was in power it was called the Congress Investigating Bureau and all. I suppose it keeps you. It was also described by a judge of the Supreme Court as a caged parent. Yeah, caged parent. And we have two former directors of the CBI being investigated by the very same agency they headed. Yes, I mean this is not only CBI it is there in every. Okay, now you've talked about the nexus between the mining lobby, business persons and politicians. But this has also been facilitated by corrupt bureaucrats. Now in your report you had recommended action against over 787 officers of the Karnataka government. And recently, relatively recently on the 17th of May 2017 serving officer of the Indian administrative service. I should name him Mr. Gangaram Baderia. He was arrested. I mean was this a rather rare or rather egregious example of a corrupt bureaucrat because he was also the accusations against him are also pertaining to this iron ore. Yeah, he was the secretary of mining. Yes, I agree with you. Nothing has been done based on my report. I can tell you the present political party which is in power in Karnataka they walked all the way from Balarri to Bangalore as a protest for not implementing my report. Now they have been in charge for four years. What have they done? It only shows that when it comes to brass tracks all political parties are the same. How do you react to the social activist Ravi Krishna Reddy in March 2017? He wrote to the top five judges of the Supreme Court of India alleging that the then chief justice of Karnataka Justice Subro Kamal Mukherjee had favored Gali Janathan Reddy. Would you like to say anything about his allegation? Well, there were many allegations against that person. This is one of them only. And I think he's been given a membership of some tribunal now which I read in the papers and all but there were serious allegations against that particular judge who was there. And Ravi Krishna Reddy I think did the right thing to bring it to the notice of the superior court. Probably otherwise he might have gone to the Supreme Court or something. When he didn't go to the Supreme Court ultimately. In today's paper I read he's been given a membership of some tribunal. Tell me, after spending about three years behind bars, the person who's often considered to be the kingpin, the lynchpin of the Skandal Gali Janathan Reddy, former minister and Mr. Yadu Rapa's government, when his daughter Bramani gets married in Bangalore, the amount of money that is spent is unprecedented. I mean all kinds of reports we hear. I mean the brigade ground in Karnataka was converted into some sort of all the monuments of Karnataka were rebuilt over there. And mind you, this was just around the time demonetization had happened in November of 2016. Now five days later the income tax department rates him. In between what happens? One driver called KC Ramesh, he is supposed to be working for a government officer of the Karnataka government. He commits suicide and in a suicide note he writes that he was being forced to convert 100 crores of black money into white. I mean what do you say about the sheer conspicuous manner in which this person, after spending three years in jail, he splurges on his daughter's wedding. Even the invitation card that he sent reportedly cost a huge amount of money. And what happens subsequently? Well that itself indicates the fact that nothing has been done pursuant to my mining report. If they were to be raided properly and the properties were to be seized and the accounts were to be seized too, such amount of money would not have been available to them. That also indicates the failure of demonetization because a person can come from jail. Within a few days if you could get nearly 150 crores of rupees in present day currency to spend on the daughter's wedding, itself is a fact that certain class of people in this country can get overlaw very easily. My last question, no not my last question, I have one other question, an ultimate question. How important are institutions and how important are the individuals who head these institutions? Under you, the people's ombudsman, the institution of the Lokayukta in Karnataka was very very active, I should say aggressively active in taking unearthing this, I don't know, mining scandal. You were succeeded by a former Chief Justice of Karnataka, Justice Bhaskar Rao. Now he was a person whose son was accused of blackmail and extortion. And in a sense the whole institution of the Lokayukta got degraded before the eyes of the people. What do you have to say about the institution and the people who head these institutions? Karnataka Lokayukta institution was one of the first ombudsman institution created anywhere in India, maybe next only to Madhya Pradesh and all. It was expected to be a very strong ombudsman's body. So two parts were given to the institution. One is the grievance redressal that is giving relief to people who suffer because of administration or maladministration or no administration. The other one is to fight corruption through the Lokayukta police, the big unit of police with the Lokayukta. These are the only two of the past Lokayukta had. For very many reasons, though institutions came to existence in 1986 till about 2001, nobody did anything in that institution. They just came as retired judges, enjoyed the place and went away. It is just as N. Venkatachala who came in 2001 who really created ripple in the society by reading very many people with the thing and showed that what Lokayukta was. I succeeded him in 2006 and I also found the institution had a very strong past. It could soar motto that is by itself without any complaint start investigation even against the chief minister and other higher authorities. It did not take anybody's permission on that and all. Such was the institution which was liked by very many people in Karnataka. We did a lot of work by catching the wrong corrupt people or even granting relief to people who could not find relief from the government to the thing and all. Unfortunately, it became very unpopular with the people in Pa. So the first thing that happened was soon after I retired two other people came but then left in between and then came Mr. Bhaskar Rao. Bhaskar Rao was suspected to be a corrupt judge because when his name appeared in the newspaper, the barolization of Karnataka passed a resolution saying that his corrupt don't bring him but still they brought them in. And what did he do? He brought a person that is son who was accused of cheating in Hyderabad, got him bail and brought him to Karnataka, made him stay in his own house, gave him a room in the Karnataka loka ekta and he allowed him to sort of blackmail officers who were suspected to be corrupt. And yeah, I'm told he used to call the people over the phone and say, if you don't give me so much money, I'll see that the loka ekta raided them. And many of them supposed to have paid which is the interim report that police officer said. Yeah, it's extortion. It is not a simple case of receiving bribe or something. It's simple. They caught you according to me if I can go that extent or not. So this is how the people in Paa were trying to destroy the institution of loka ekta. Then in 2016 or 2014, they tried to take away one of the Paa's grievance, which fortunately came to the public domain and people started protesting against it so they dropped that idea. Then came 2016 without discussion, either in the assembly or within the political system, they created an ACB and transferred the power of loka ekta fighting corruption powers to ACB. Anti-corruption. Anti-corruption powers. Yeah. What does it indicate? It definitely indicates the people who are in Paa, whether it's A party or B party, they do not want loka ekta because loka ekta is an institution which fights against them and they miss deeds. So every effort was made to denude the powers of the loka ekta and also I think in a way by bringing Bhaskar Rao, they wanted to make it, you know, people would not be able to repose confidence in that institution. This was an effort by people in Paa. And today, you all would have said that the loka ekta was attacked by a person, was a complainant in the case, and he was stabbed very many times. And we also find that the loka ekta institution had sent seven letters in three years saying that the security in the loka ekta office is very, very missing. Then metal detector is not working, such like complainant. But the government didn't even bother to look into that. But a reply also. And at 1.30, stabbing incident takes place. You know, at 4 o'clock, they bring a new metal detector and put it there. So in other words, you're saying that the Karnataka government has systematically, what should I say, weakened this institution? Not only the present political party in Paa, but the previous BJP party also did the same thing by appointing this person. Bhaskar Rao is a loka ekta. My last question to you. You have participated in the movement against corruption, which was led by Anna Hazare in the India Against Corruption. You still have our own good terms with him. Do you believe civil society, ordinary citizens, and people like you and people like Anna Hazare still can do something to even make a dent, even a small dent, against this kind of widespread corruption in public life in India? I was confident when Anna's movement was here to speak. I have travelled all over India. I've seen the response of the people, how much respect they had to Anna Hazare. And they used to listen to the speeches of Anna Hazare and others who were there, which gave us a lot bit of hope that maybe the society will change. It was mostly the middle-class people who used to participate in these proceedings. But I think we did make a small mistake. Not a small mistake, it became a big mistake in the end. We started speaking about it only in the cities, metropolitan cities, and it didn't go to the district level or taluk level. The rural areas. And this type of participation has a fatigue factor. Middle-class people can't come every time, and there is a protest in the thing, so they have their own personal difficulties, they have their work and everything. So in that process, I think we lost some of the supporters in the thing. The biggest damage was the creation of a political party, which I think... I'm very unhappy with that. I'm very unhappy with the fact, because I think many things Anna Hazare expected to happen didn't happen, and this is one thing I don't think he ever expected that to happen. Well, thank you so much Justice Santoshak Dey for coming here and giving us your time and expressing yourself so candidly and so quickly. Thank you once again. You've just heard and watched Justice N. Santoshak Dey, former Lokayukta of Karnataka, former judge of the Supreme Court, expressing his sadness, his anguish at the fact that the Bharati Janta Party has nominated Mr. B.S. Yadu Rappa as its chief ministerial candidate, a person against whom and his family members, just to say that he was responsible for publishing a voluminous report inditing him or seeking to indict him for corrupt practices. Thank you for being with us.