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Bengaluru, Jun 21: As many as 453 new coronavirus cases were confirmed on Sunday including 196 in Bengaluru alone, taking the total number of infections in Karnataka to 9,150, the Health Department said.

Five more deaths took the toll due to COVID-19 in the state to 137, a bulletin issued by the department said.

An assistant sub-inspector posted in a traffic police station died due to coronavirus on Saturday night taking the number of policemen succumbing to the contagion to three, police said.

The entire police station has been sealed for sanitisation and 25 people including five primary contacts of the deceased have been quarantined at the designated hospitals.

The total number of COVID-19 cases include 5,618 discharges, 3,391 active cases, 137 deaths, four deaths due to non-COVID causes and 77 patients admitted in Intensive Care Units.

The 196 cases confirmed in Bengaluru today is the highest single-day spike ever since the outbreak of the pandemic.

With 64 deaths so far, the city's share in the total fatalities in the state due to COVID is 47 per cent.

The five deaths reported on Sunday included three in Bengaluru.

"Yes. It is a major single day spike in Bengaluru," a health department official told P T I.

Of the total cases reported in Bengaluru, 101 are Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) and 68 are those whose contact tracing is underway.

Apart from 196 in Bengaluru, 40 cases were reported in Ballari, 39 cases each in Kalaburagi and Vijayapura, 18 each in Mysuru and Gadag, 15 in Dharwad, 14 in Bagalkote, 13 in Bidar, eight each in Davangere, Uttara Kannada and Kolar.

The five deaths reported on Sunday consisted of four men and a woman.

In view of the rising cases in Bengaluru, the Chief Secretary on Saturday formed three teams.

According to an order, Principal Secretary in Cooperative department Tushar Girinath will head the team that will ensure shifting the patients from their houses or the institutional quarantine facilities to the designated hospital.

The second team headed by the Karnataka Public Service Commission secretary G Sathyavathi will monitor the containment zone and carry out extensive surveys of people with COVID-19.

The third team is headed by Karnataka State Mineral Development Corporation managing director Naveen Raj Singh and Additional Commissioner of police Hemant Nimbalkar who will ensure social distancing at public places.

These three teams will have senior bureaucrats and top police officers as members.

Kalaburagi, Apr 9: An FIR has been lodged against the management and staff of Bahamani Super Speciality Hospital here in Kalaburagi allegedly for not following procedures meant to deal with COVID-19 and hiding details of patients with coronavirus symptoms, said District Deputy Commissioner Sharath B on Wednesday.

The district family welfare department official and nodal officer of KPME Kalaburagi took cognisance of the reports that the private hospitals in the district are not informing the government about patients having COVID-19 symptoms and they are only reporting about such cases at the last moment.

"It has come to our light that some private hospitals in Kalaburagi city are hiding information about the patients who are having COVID-19 like symptoms and these cases are not being reported on time to us," said the District Deputy Commissioner.

"We verified the records of these hospitals and it is clear now that they are revealing the serious cases in the last moment when the treatment has not given any help to patients. Only then such cases are bringing to ESI hospital in Kalaburagi. We have taken steps to quarantine the entire staff member of Bahamani hospital. We have taken legal steps against them for non-compliance of the orders issued to them and for not reporting this matter to us at the earliest stage," he said.

A case has been registered under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 column 51, 58 and sections 269 and 188 of the Indian Penal Code.

He further said that two new cases were reported positive on April 8 and one person has succumbed to the infection because he was having a severe respiratory infection.
He appealed to everyone to strictly follow lockdown restrictions and not violate Section 144 at any cost.

Speaking about the attacks on Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) and Anganwadi workers, who were given a task to collect travel details of locals in view of coronavirus crisis, Sharath said: "Some of the health workers, ASHA and Anganwadi workers, who have been given a task to going from door to door to verify health status were troubled unnecessarily, saying that they have come to collect data for NRC and NPR."

"They are doing a survey on behalf of the district administration as they have to gather travelling information so that a person can be quarantined to contain COVID-19 spread. There has been an attack, a case has been registered in this regard," he said.

Bengaluru, Mar 4: The Karnataka High Court has issued a notice to the state government in connection with the denial of retirement benefits to a retired deputy commissioner of commercial taxes who had fought against the illegal iron ore lobby.

Justice G Narendra also directed the state to respond to the notice before March 9, stating the reasons for withholding the officer’s retirement benefits.

Advocate Ramananda, appearing for the retired officer Josephat Andrews, explained that the single-judge bench also warned the government of stringent action.

Petitioner Josephat Andrews said his retirement benefits amounting to Rs 25.88 lakh were being withheld since 2014.

In 2009, Andrews detected a huge scam involving Vijaya Leasing, a company associated with former minister Gali Janardhan Reddy. Immediately he wrote to his higher officials explaining to them how the department was owed Rs 1,400 crore in taxes by the company. Immediately after that, Andrews was transferred to Bengaluru.

The media exposed the scam in 2012. Thereafter, to harass the officer, Andrews was served notice for allegedly not conducting an inspection of M/s Vijaya Leasing, which was controlled by the family of then tourism minister Gali Janardhana Reddy, on July 11, 2012.  He was discharged by a full departmental enquiry.

The petitioner was issued a second show cause notice on Jan 29, 2014 on the same charges. Before his retirement, he was docked two increments, denied promotional benefits and his pension was reduced without following due process.

He was served yet another notice with charges that he did not inspect goods vehicles, and an order was passed on April 30, 2019 reducing his pension by 5 per cent, an unprecedented punitive action.

This order was quashed by the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal (KAT), which also ordered payment of retirement benefits to Andrews within five months. However, the benefits were not released to him.  

“Rule 214 of the Karnataka Civil Services Rules (KCSR) make it clear that no enquiry can be held four years after an officer’s retirement.  Belying all statutory rules and precedents of the Supreme Court, Josephat Andrews’ retirement benefits were withheld for five years. Andrews therefore approached the High Court,” advocate Ramananda explained.

Josephat Andrews recalled to Deccan Chronicle that although mining activity was in full swing in 2008, the commercial tax department maintained that it had nothing to do with mining. “I travelled to Gujarat, Maharashtra and Bellary to investigate. I found tax evasion of thousands of crores. When I visited M/s the Vijaya Leasing facility – it was operating from an old oil mill premises–within 20 minutes I got calls from Ali, a person claiming to be the personal assistant of Gali Janardhan Reddy. He told me to get out of the premises as it belonged to his boss. Then calls came from minister Sreeramulu and MLA Nagendra. 

Within minutes 200-300 rowdies gathered around the building and my superior asked me to come back. Instead of filing a police complaint and forming a special team to deal with the situation, the department transferred me to Bengaluru,” he explained.

Talking about the High Court directive, Josephat Andrews said, “I have suffered a lot. Instead of getting a reward for increasing revenues by Rs 2,000 crore, I was punished.”