Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has appointed retired judge Justice H S Kempanna as the Claims Commissioner to estimate the loss to property and damages, as well as investigate the liability, caused during the riots that occurred in DJ Halli and KG Halli a few weeks ago.
The order was passed based on the Supreme Court judgment in a 2009 suo motu petition on Destruction of Public and Private Properties, during the hearing of the petition filed by the state government seeking the appointment of a Claims Commissioner.
It can be recalled that violent riots broke out in Bengaluru after a Congress MLA’s nephew uploaded a derogatory post on the Prophet Muhammad. The MLA’s home and the houses and vehicles of several others were vandalised and set ablaze.
Appointing Justice Kempanna as the Claims Commissioner, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Ashok S Kinagi issued the order and directed the Karnataka government to consult the retired judge for the necessary infrastructure. The bench, however, left it to Justice Kempanna to decide whether he would conduct the hearings and the recording of statements via video conferencing owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bench, however, clarified that the appointment was made based only on the materials showing the destruction of public and private properties and that they did not go into the correctness of the FIR.
They added that the liability will have to be determined before the High Court after hearing the all the parties once the Claims Commissioner submits his report, as per the Supreme Court.
While appointing the Claims Commissioner, the bench also gave the state government several directions from fixing the remuneration to the appointment of the necessary staff, especially property assessors.
