The Karnataka High Court Tuesday allowed the Lokayukta police to issue a fresh notice to IPS officer Srinath Mahadev Joshi to appear in connection with an investigation into a case pertaining to alleged extortion by a dismissed police constable, Ningappa Savant, by posing as an official of the state anti-corruption agency and a middleman.
The high court allowed the Lokayukta police to summon the Indian Police Service officer again as it noted that the earlier date for Joshi’s appearance in the previous notice had expired. The court also stated that a notice can be issued to Joshi to appear before the Lokayukta police within 10 days and allowed him to seek anticipatory bail.
On June 18, the HC stayed the summons issued by the Lokayukta police for questioning Joshi, who was a superintendent of police in the Karnataka Lokayukta, until June 12, about his association with Savant.
On Tuesday, the Karnataka High Court also reserved its order in a plea filed by Savant to quash the FIR registered by the Lokayukta police against him in the alleged extortion case. On June 17, the high court bench of Justice S R Krishna Kumar had stayed the FIR filed against Savant.
Joshi had earlier sought anticipatory bail from a Lokayukta court, but his plea was dismissed on June 24 by the special court as being “devoid of merits”. He obtained a media gag order on June 20 from a civil court against defamatory reporting regarding the case.
In a statement last week, the Lokayukta said, “Joshi was in touch with Ningappa and was involved in threatening government officials to extort money. They used the code word ‘kg’ (for money), the preliminary probe has revealed. The money was converted by investing in cryptocurrency”.
The extortion activities linked to the Karnataka Lokayukta emerged following an extortion attempt on a regional transport officer (RTO) in Tumkur on May 23, 2025. The Tumkur RTO filed a complaint with the police, saying he had received a call from an unidentified number from a person claiming to be Vamsi Krishna, the SP of the Bengaluru City Lokayukta unit, demanding money to prevent a Lokayukta raid on him.
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The probe in the case by the Lokayukta police led to the arrest on June 2 of Savant, who was identified as the alleged person who called the Tumkur RTO impersonating a Lokayukta police officer.
Savant was granted bail on June 19 by the Karnataka High Court after his wife G K Chandrakala filed a plea saying the Lokayukta police did not follow the procedures mandated by the Supreme Court while arresting her husband on June 2.
The Lokayukta police retrieved data from the phone they seized from Savant and found that the dismissed police constable was closely associated with Joshi through multiple messages and calls. They also found that Savant had 23 cryptocurrency wallets with around Rs 4.92 crore in 13 of them.
The Lokayukta police searched Joshi’s residence on June 15. They approached the Karnataka High Court on June 30 to allow the continuation of the investigations against Savant and Joshi, citing public concern over the credibility of the anti-corruption institution in the wake of the case.