CM's home district misses deadline for pothole filling

Mangalore, December 24: The general body meeting of the Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat convened on Friday turned out to be another exercise in futility. It was to discuss important issue of meeting the deadline laid by the Chief Minister for filling potholes n the district. But the meeting ended up in blame game on less-important issues.

A member's complaint that officials did not recognise her presence on stage during a programme, ate away quality time on irrelevant discussion during the general body meeting of Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat on Friday.

Though the ZP President Shailaja Bhat had announced right in the beginning of the meeting that the members should concentrate on the agenda and stick to the point during the discussion so that the meeting could complete the business, members deviated from developmental issues, resorting into arguments and counter arguments to ensure that they have done their bit to save the prestige of their respective parties.

Congress members Mamata Gatti, M S Mohommad and others said that despite ZP completing 10 months of its existence, it has failed to implement any major work because of paucity of funds. Raged by this ruling party members Santhosh Kumar Rai, Chanappa Kotian and others said that the Congress members are making baseless allegations because many of the members have got about Rs one crore each to carry on development works. Taking this as an injustice meted out at them, the Congress members said that only ruling party members can claim of getting 'crores' of rupees for taking up work because Congress party members have not received any money.

Soon the discussion took the 'party colour' with the Centre, the State, the CM, MLAs all being pulled into the discussion. However, ZP Chief putting an end to the discussion, which had gone haywire, asked the ZP Engineering Department to take up road repair works at the earliest. She said that she would personally inspect each and every work.

Senior member Yashwanthi Alva, making way for yet another discussion said that during one of the programmes of Mangalore Taluk Panchayat she was sidelined and insulted by the officials who did not recognize her presence on the stage. Members Mamata Gatti, Mohommad, Saraswathi Kamat and others said that it is time members took the issue seriously because such incidents of sidelining ZP members had happened even in the past.

“Let ZP Chief supercede the Taluk Panchayat concerned,” said a member while another member said that ZP CEO should issue notice to faulty officials. However, the prolonged altercation around Yashwanthi Alva who was crying in front of the house ended almost after an hour. Due to this issue, an important discussion on setting up of Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendras in the district was abruptly ended.

However, it was heard from various quarters that it was unbecoming of ZP members to take up irrelevant discussions at a crucial juncture of time when most of the GPs in the district are facing problems like acute shortage of drinking water, bad roads, closure of schools etc.

The ZP meet decided to hold a special meeting within ten days to discuss over various issues pertaining to the Revenue department. Members informed the house that the surveyors have not been coming to survey the land and there are lot of problem pertaining to distribution of widow pension, disabled allowances etc. Summing all the problems related to Revenue department, the ZP decided to convene a meeting to sort out issues.

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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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