Chinnaiah & others duped state govt by concealing SC order in Dharmasthala case

MANGALURU: In yet another revelation in the Dharmasthala alleged mass burial case, Chinnaiah and the others who faced a setback before the Supreme Court, had concealed the issue and went ahead and filed a complaint with the Dakshina Kannada Superintendent Police.

It has now come to light that the group had approached the Supreme Court through Chinnaiah before filing the complaint with the SP. They had filed Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court, but on May 5, a bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Satish Chandra had dismissed the petition.

The group, however, concealed this information and filed a petition in the Belthangady court and also complained to the SP. On April 30, the group gang had filed a petition demanding the formation of an SIT to investigate the Dharmasthala case.

However, on May 5, the Supreme Court had dismissed the PIL, criticizing it for lacking public interest and showing personal interest. The court had observed that the petition was driven by monetary, political or private interests and said it had lost all sense of dignity and decorum.

The court had also noted that the petition pertained to incidents from 1995-2004 and was filed in 2025, which was a significant delay. The bench noted that hearing the petition would be a futile exercise and said it had no option but to dismiss it. After this, an application was filed in the Belthangady court, it has now been revealed.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah invited SIT chief Pronab Mohanty on Thursday morning and received an update from him for over 20 minutes. It is ironic that no one in the government was aware that Chinnaiah had approached the Supreme Court. The latest revelations have raised several questions — Where did the government go wrong? Did this issue slip under the government’s radar? Are unseen hands behind this? Didn’t the government know that the Supreme Court dismissed the PIL? Or did they form the SIT to avoid controversy?