Zeenews Bureau
Bangalore: Karnataka Governor HR Bhardwaj, Tuesday, accepted the resignation of state Lokayukta Shivraj Patil, who had resigned over allegations of violating cooperative housing society laws to own two sites in the state capital.
A retired judge of the Supreme Court, Patil took over on August 3 from another former apex court judge N Santosh Hegde, whose explosive report on illegal mining scam forced BS Yeddyurappa, first chief minister of BJP in South India, to quit on July 31.
Importantly, Bhardwaj had met Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda this morning reportedly to discuss the Lokayukta issue.
Patil had earlier denied any wrong-doing in buying a 4,012 sq feet plot in his wife Annapurna`s name from Vyalikaval House Building Cooperative Society (VHBCS) near Nagavara on Bangalore`s outskirts in 2006.
This plot was bought even though Patil owned a house in Bangalore. He got in 1994 a 9,600 sq ft site from the Karnataka State Judicial Department Employees` House Building Cooperative Society at Allasandra in another part of Bangalore`s outskirts.
The cooperative housing society rules state that people who own a plot or a house in a city are not eligible to get another plot from a housing society as the plots are sold at prices much lower than in the market for the members of the society.
Patil`s contention is that his wife was not allotted a plot by the Vyalikaval Society and it was bought in an auction.
Patil is the sixth Karnataka Lokayukta, the anti-graft institution that was set up in 1986, making Karnataka the first state do so.
