Porngate: Case against ministers not maintainable

The police today filed an affidavit before a local court stating a private complaint lodged on the recent porn-watching episode involving three former BJP ministers inside the assembly was "not maintainable".

The complaint filed by advocate Dharmapal Gowda was "not maintainable" as the complainant had not taken any permission from the Speaker of Legislative Assembly before filing it, Vidhana Soudha police said in their affidavit before the Additional City Metropolitan Magistrate court judge Kiran Kini.

Since the incident took place inside the Assembly hall and all the three former ministers are sitting MLAs, the permission of the Speaker is necessary and mandatory, they submitted. Since the permission of the Speaker had not been sought, the complaint is "not maintainable", they said.

On February 13, acting on a private complaint filed by Gowda, the ACMM court had ordered the sub-inspector of Vidhana Soudha (State Secretariat) Police Station to investigate and submit a report into the incident by February 27.

Speaker Bopaiah had last week served the notices to former ministers Lakshman Savadi, C C Patil and Krishna Palemar seeking their replies after they were caught last week on TV cameras watching a sleazy video on a mobile phone in the Assembly. The disgraced BJP members had sought one week's time to reply.

The porngate issue rocked both the houses resulting in these adjourning sine die.