Upalokayukta quits citing ill Health

BANGALORE: Barely 22 days after Justice Shivaraj Patil resigned as Lokayukta after he was accused of flouting housing society norms to acquire residential sites, his deputy Upalokayukta Justice R Gururajan resigned on Wednesday citing health problems.Justice Gururajan sent his resignation to Governor H R Bharadwaj on Wednesday evening. In a release issued here on Wednesday night, Gururajan said “sudden developments” in his family circles and “health problems” forced him to resign. However, he did not elaborate on either his problems or the developments in his family in the release.Though he cited poor health as the reason to quit mid-way, sources in the Lokayukta maintain that he resigned fearing a controversy over his assets.Though Gururaj has declared his assets on the Lokayukta website, he is said to have violated housing society norms by having a 2,700 sq ft plot allotted from the Karnataka State Judicial Department Employees House Building Co-Operative Society at Allalasandra near Yelahanka in 2001 in spite of already owning a flat.His declaration of assets states that he had bought a two-bedroom flat (No 33/1) on 8th Main in Malleswaram in 1982 for an amount of Rs. 1.23 lakh.According to housing society norms, anyone owning a site or flat is not eligible to get sites from any housing society and any member seeking a site has to give an affidavit to this effect. Former Lokayukta Shivaraj Patil, who had also declared his assets, was also accused of a similar violation and had to resign.