Karnataka High Court dismisses PIL challenging political appointments to CM’s office

The Karnataka High Court on Thursday dismissed a public interest litigation challenging the appointment of political secretaries and media advisor to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah finding nothing amiss about the appointments.

A division bench consisting of chief justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Krishna S Dixit dismissed the petition. The court said it will record the reasons separately.

The petitioner, advocate Umapathy S had filed a PIL questioning the appointments of Congress MLCs K Govindaraj and Nazeer Ahmed as political secretaries, Sunil Kunagol as chief advisor and KV Prabhakar as media advisor to the Chief Minister.


The petitioner, appearing in person, argued that the appointments were violative of the Article 164 (1-A) of the Constitution as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's Cabinet had attained its full capacity of 34 members.

The court, however, noted that the four political appointees had not been inducted either as ministers or state or cabinet ministers and assigned any portfolio.

The Bench also wondered if there was any prohibition to their appointment, and asked the petitioner to show if there was one.

The CM had appointed the four persons as political secretaries and advisors with a ministerial rank soon after the Congress party formed the government in May.