MCC to hand over rural water supply maintenance to ZP

October 27, 2011

Mangalore, October 27: The Council of the Mangalore City Corporation has decided to hand over the maintenance of water supply to Adyar, Padu, Thumbe Gram pancahayts to Zilla Panchayat at the earliest.

The supply of water to these villages without any income is incurring additional burden of Rs 84 lakh to the City Corporation.

The agenda said that with the implementation of KUIDFC water supplying pipelines, the residents of Pudu, Kallige, Thumbe and Farangipete are getting water from Thumbe free of cost. However, it has been maintained by the Mangalore City Corporation. About 2.25 MGD water is supplied to these villages since 2007. With the maintenance of water supply system, the MCC is spending Rs 7 lakh monthly towards electricity bill, payment of wages to the employees and pumpset maintenance.

MCC Commissioner Dr Harish said that potholes on all the motorable roads in 60 wards will be filled within a week. The estimate for filling the potholes has been put at Rs 2.5 crore. When corporator Shashidhar Hegde and Naveen D'Souza said that there is a need to convene a meeting of road contractors to discuss their problems with regard to asphaltation of roads, Mayor Praveen said that the meeting will be convened within three days.

Shankar Bhat said that one organisation was distributing photostat copy of application form for Ashraya scheme, for Rs 500 recently. Whether any organisation has the right to distribute application forms for money?

The Commissioner said that the MCC has identified land for the landless. However, few persons had approached the court stating that the identified land is their kumki land. Under Vasathi yojana, the MCC is planning to construct flats. If any organisations come forward to bear the expenses on social responsibility, the MCC can construct few houses to the poor.

Corporator James D'Souza raised the issue of streetlights in the MCC limits and said that majority of the streetlights do not burn inspite of complaints. The Commissioner said that all contractors meeting was convened recently.

The MCC has decided to pay monthly maintenance amount to the contractors only after the Corporator gives verification certificate. The new tender will be invited for maintaining streetlights at the earliest as the tender document is ready for the same, he added.

The State has directed all the urban local bodies (MCC, CMC, TMCs) to revise the water tariff in its letter dated September 28, 2011. However, the MCC has resolved not to hike the tariff as the government failed to take the Council to consideration while taking a decision.

“At the same time, we have enough water source near the City, unlike other Corporation, where the cost incurred for supplying water is more,” said Chief Whip Sudheer Shetty.

The Council also made automatic reading metre mandatory for commercial flats, non domestic and high rise buildings, commercial (hotels) in the City Corporation limits.

Accordingly, the MCC will invite tender for the purchase of AMR and initiate measure to install the water connections. The money for the same will be collected from the users through water bill. The users will be given 10 installments to pay the money for the metres.

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HC refuses to quash probe against Mangaluru WhatsApp admin over offensive posts

News Network

February 1,2026

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has refused to quash an investigation against a WhatsApp group administrator accused of allowing the circulation of obscene and offensive images depicting Hindutva politicians and idols in 2021.

Justice M Nagaprasanna observed that, prima facie, the ingredients of the offence under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code were made out. “The offence under Section 295A of the IPC is met to every word of its ingredient, albeit prima facie,” the judge said.

The petitioner, Sirajuddin, a resident of Belthangady taluk in Dakshina Kannada district, had challenged the FIR registered against him at the CEN (Cyber, Economics and Narcotics) police station, Mangaluru, for offences under Section 295A of the IPC and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act. Section 295A relates to punishment for deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of any class of citizens.

According to the complaint filed by K Jayaraj Salian, also a resident of Belthangady taluk, he received a WhatsApp group link from an unknown source and was added to the group after accessing it. The group reportedly had six administrators and around 250 participants, where obscene and offensive images depicting Hindu deities and certain political figures were allegedly circulated repeatedly.

Sirajuddin was arrested in connection with the case and later released on bail on February 16, 2021. He argued before the court that he was being selectively targeted, while other administrators—including the creator of the group—were neither arrested nor investigated. He also contended that the Magistrate could not have taken cognisance of the offence under Section 295A without prior sanction under Section 196(1) of the CrPC.

Rejecting the argument, Justice Nagaprasanna held that prior sanction is required only at the stage of taking cognisance, and not at the stage of registration of the crime or during investigation.

The judge noted that the State had produced the entire investigation material before the court. “A perusal of the material reveals depictions of Hindu deities in an extraordinarily obscene, demeaning and profane manner. The content is such that its reproduction in a judicial order would itself be inappropriate,” the court said, adding that the material, on its face, had the tendency to outrage religious feelings and disturb communal harmony.

Observing that the case was still at the investigation stage, the court said it could not interdict the probe at this juncture. However, it expressed concern that the investigating officer appeared to have not proceeded uniformly against all administrators. The court clarified that if the investigation revealed the active involvement of any member in permitting the circulation of such content, they must also be proceeded against.

“At this investigative stage, any further observation by this Court would be unnecessary,” the order concluded.

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