Lawyer killing: HC issues notices

:The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday treated a letter written by a city-basedNGO as suo motu PIL and ordered notices to the home secretary and policeofficers of the Mangalore crime branch on the recent killing of advocate NaushadKasim. The vacation division bench headed by Justice D V ShylendraKumar treated the April 21 letter addressed to Chief Justice P D Dinakaran bySouth India Cell for Human Rights, Education and Monitoring (SICHREM) andordered notices to Jayant Shetty, DySP, Crime Records, police officers VenkateshPrasanna, M Shivaprasad and Valentine D'Souza and adjourned the matter to nextmonth.Naushad Kasim, the criminal lawyer defending Rashid Malabariwho owes allegiance to Chhota Shakeel, was shot dead on April 10. His senior,Purushotham Poojary, stated that the police are behind his death. Naushad hadappeared as defence counsel for Atul Rao in the Padmapriya case and in BJPleader Sukhanand Shetty's murder case. This has irked the authorities, who areallegedly behaving like agents of the SanghParivar.Pulling up the police for not registering casesagainst those named responsible for minors going missing in several habeascorpus petitions, the high court has ordered them to act impartially and withinthe ambit of law.The court ordered notices to the city police on ahabeas corpus petition filed by one B Choodamani of Nagarabhavi, alleging thather son was kidnapped on April 14 by Niranjan, Ambarish, Ashok and Jaipal, andare demanding Rs 8 lakh as ransom.In another case, the courtexpressed displeasure about certain wordings about the judges, in a statement ofthe city police commissioner.The case related to a missing minorgirl from Indiranagar, who is allegedly confined in Nanjangud. The girl speaksto her mother over phone but does not give away her location. The police are yetto trace the origin of the call.In another case, the court treated atelegram sent by one Rajeshwari from Tumkur as a habeas corpus petition allegingthat her daughter, who was kidnapped last year, is still untraceable. The courtissued notice to the Tumkur police and adjourned the hearing to May5.The high court ordered notice to the educationdepartment on a petition filed by one Ramu, challenging his transfer and the KATorder to continue Anjane Gowda, principal of Govt PU College, Old Fort,Chamarajpet.The petitioner, who was serving in a pre-universitycollege in Srinivasapur in Kolar, was transferred to the PU College, Fort. Theincumbent principal had obtained a stay and the matter was referred to the cadremanagement authority headed by the minister. In the meantime, Anjane Gowda wastransferred to Hagalakote in Magadi taluk, against which he filed a contemptcase against the minister and was granted time till April 30.Now,Ramu is apprehensive that certain wordings in that order allow Anjane Gowda toremain at the Fort college beyond this month-end and he will have no posting ashe has already beenrelieved.The High Court ordered notice to the state government andBBMP on a PIL filed by the Citizen Action Forum challenging the validity ofsection 108A in the KMC Act, which provides for collection of property tax inBangalore city by adopting UAV and zonal calculations.The petitionerclaims the system is unscientific and there is no explanation as to how theyarrived at those calculations, and also sought proper registration of propertiesbefore calculating tax.