Egg attack on Siddaramaiah: K’taka HC stays proceedings against accused

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has granted an interim stay to proceedings in a trial court against the two accused of throwing eggs at former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s car in Kodagu.

The stay was granted by a winter holiday special single-judge bench of Justice S Rachaiah, on Thursday on a petition by the accused in the case Sampath Kumar and B M Santhosh.

The advocate representing the petitioners argued that the accused were arrested without any evidence of their role in the incident. This is illegal, and so the counsel requested that the trial of the case should be stayed.

After hearing the arguments, the court said prima facie there seems to be substance in the petitioners’ argument and issued a notice to the respondents in the case, and stayed the hearing of the case.

It may be recalled that former CM Siddaramaiah visited the flood-affected areas of Kodagu on August 18. At that time, BJP Yuva Morcha had held a protest in Kushalnagar condemning his controversial statement on freedom fighter Veer Savarkar. When Siddaramaiah was traveling in a car on the route, some Hindu activists threw eggs at his car.

The police had registered a case based on the complaint filed by V P Sashidhar of Kushalnagar and had arrested the two accused.