It appears there will be no end to controversies in retired IPS officer Kempaiah’s life and career. Once known as a tough cop who chased one of the country’s most feared forest brigands, he has gone to being questioned in yet another corruption allegation.
Earlier this week, M Kempaiah, architect of Karnataka’s controversial Anti-Corruption Bureau, was questioned by the Directorate of Income Tax. He was thoroughly interrogated for a few hours, in connection with a transaction of Rs 12 crores allegedly involving him.
The Income Tax officials questioned him after his name was found in a diary that they seized from the premises of MLC K Govindaraju. The entry listed a transaction of Rs 12 crore to Kempaiah for political expenses.
Who is Kempaiah?
An IPS officer of the 1981 batch, Kempaiah retired in 2009 after the Lokayukta police chargesheeted him in a case of corruption. Currently, he is adviser to the state Home Minister, appointed by chief minister Siddaramaiah in August 2014.
Claim to fame
Kempaiah is one of the few cops about whom films have been made, including former Karnataka police chief HT Sangliana.
He has handled several high profile cases including that of tracing former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins and cadres of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). He found Shubha and Sivarasan along with six other LTTE members who were sitting tight in the Konankunte area of Bengaluru. However, Sivarasan killed himself before he could be captured.
Kempaiah also headed the Special Task Force before the elite unit eventually killed Veerappan in Dharmapuri district. During his tenure, Kempaiah drove Veerappan into the MM Hills and was on the verge of catching Veerappan but the smuggler slipped out of his grasp as the state government transferred him.
Corruption
Kempaiah took voluntary retirement in 2009, two years before it was due, after the Lokayukta filed a charge-sheet against him in a corruption case. Kempaiah challenged the case in the Karnataka High Court and the charges were eventually dropped.
At present, the IT department has questioned him in connection with an entry in a diary about the controversial Arkavathy land de-notification case in which huge amounts of money had reportedly exchanged hands. Besides Mr. Govindraju, the I-T sleuths had also raided the premises of two other MLCs - U. Mallikarjun (Independent) and C.R. Manohar (JD-S) in March.
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