Seer falls foul of the law, accused in forgery case
The state has seen its top politicians being accused of scams and corruption and now it appears to be the turn of its religious heads. The Lokayukta special court has received a complaint alleging that Chitradurga’s Murugharajendra Math seer, Dr Shivamurthy , who is also president of the SJM Vidyapeetha, entered into a conspiracy with BJP MLA , Aravind Limbavali, former principal secretary, higher education, A.S. Srikant and five others to forge documents and appoint lecturers to the college with retrospective effect.
SJM Vidyapeeta sought the state government's approval in 2010 to appoint five lecturers and after getting it claimed in its records that they were inducted between 1998 and 2001, the complainant, Suresh of Chikkamagalur alleged, while describing the swamiji as a "public servant,” as defined under section 2 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Asked by Lokayukta special court judge, N.K. Sudhindra Rao, if merely receiving aid from the government made a seer heading the selection committee of an education trust , a public servant, counsel for the complainant argued any person serving the office of a trust funded by the Union or state government could be described as such.
“Section 2 of the PC Act defines several persons as public servants, whether or not they are appointed by the government. They include office bearers of a registered co-operative society receiving financial aid from the government and chairman, member or employee of any service commission. So even seers heading aided educational institutions are public servants,” he said The court later posted the case for hearing to after the vacation.
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