Amidst outrage over the mysterious death of an upright IAS officer in Karnataka, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday asked Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to hand over the inquiry into the incident to CBI.

“The Congress president has advised the Karnataka Chief Minister to hand over the inquiry into IAS officer D K Ravi’s death to CBI,” party general secretary in-charge of Karnataka Digvijay Singh said.

Amid growing calls for a CBI probe into the case, Mr. Siddaramaiah earlier met Governor Vajubhai Val in the day in Bengaluru and briefed him about the developments in the case.

“I have met the Governor. I have explained to him the developments in Ravi’s case till date,” Mr. Siddaramaiah told reporters after meeting the Governor at Raj Bhavan.

He said the “Governor has heard what we have explained to him; we have told him the investigation is going on and the investigation has been handed over to CID.”

There has been a clamour for CBI probe from Opposition parties and the family of Ravi who was found hanging from a ceiling fan in his flat on Monday.

Stepping up pressure, BJP and JD(S) MLAs had on Thursday marched in a procession from Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat, to Raj Bhavan and requested the Governor to advise the Siddaramaiah government to refer the case to CBI.

AICC spokesperson Rajeev Gowda had on Wednesday indicated that the party was open to a CBI enquiry into the matter.

“...Essentially, this particular issue will be dealt with as the investigation unfolds and if it turns that a CBI inquiry is appropriate, then the state government will take action,” Mr. Gowda, a Rajya Sabha member from the state, had said.


Profile

D.K. Ravi was born on 10 June, 1979.

He completed his B.Sc. from the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru, and his M.Sc. from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi.

He was an IAS officer of the 2009 batch.

He was first posted as Assistant Commissioner in Revenue Department, Gulbarga Sub-division. Later, he was a Chief Executive Officer in the Koppal Zilla Panchayat. He also served as a Deputy Commissioner in Kolar.

From October 29, 2014, he was an Additional Commissioner in the Commercial Taxes Department in Bengaluru.

Big cases:

Cracked down on sand mafia in Kolar district

Recovered encroached government land and tanks in Kolar

Over the last two months 15 inspections on realty firms and leading private sector bank

How the fateful day unfolded

9:30 am:D.K. Ravi leaves his father-in-law Hanumantharayappa’s house in Nagarabhavi, where he spent the weekend with wife Kusuma

10:20 am: Reaches office in his official car

11:15 am: Reaches flat in Prestige St. John’s Woods, Chikka Adugodi

4:30 pm:Kusuma, who is still in Nagarabhavi, calls driver to ask about Ravi’s whereabouts after failing to reach him on his number.

6:00 pm: Kusuma and her father reach Koramangala flat. She uses her spare key, opens the door and finds Mr. Ravi hanging from the ceiling fan in the bedroom.

6:30 pm: Police receives calls from family

10:15 pm: Body moved to Victoria Hospital

Source: THI