Chinnaiah claims ₹200 crore plot against ‘false campaign’ in Dharmasthala case; Karnataka High Court notice to SIT on plea to complete probe

The High Court of Karnataka has ordered issue of notice to the State government and the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on a petition, which has sought direction to SIT to complete investigation in Dharmasthala case, while claiming that ₹200 crore was the budget for carrying out alleged false campaign against the Dharmasthala temple and prominent persons associated with it.

Justice Suraj Govindaraj ordered issue of notice on a petition filed by Chinna C.N alias Chinnaiah, 50, who had initially alleged that there were mass burial of dead bodies of sexually assaulted women pointing fingers at persons associated with the temple. He later retracted his allegations and told the trial court that his statements were false and he had made them “as instructed by a group of activists.”

Funding from Kerala

Narrating how activists – Girish Mattennavar, Mahesh Shetty Thimarody, T. Jayant, Vittala Gowda, three YouTubers, a group of advocates from Bengaluru -- had allegedly lured him with money and later threatened to kill him and his wife, it has been claimed in the petition that he was told by the activists that they were receiving funds from Kerala and attempts were on to get a SIT constituted in Kerala before the Karnataka government does the same.

Chinnaiah has claimed in the petition that the activists were paying him in the range of ₹2,000 to ₹5,000 at regular intervals and that they had offered him to pay a total ₹50 lakh if he gave statement against D. Veerendra Heggade and others.

It has also been claimed in the petition that a leading actor from the south also spoke to him over phone through Mattennavar and asked him him to follow the instructions of the activists.

Alleging that he was assaulted and abused by activists when they were not happy with his statement to the police sometimes, Chinnaiah has claimed that he had tried to end his life in the house of Shetty a few days before he made up his mind to confess before the SIT.

Once a witness

Chinnaiah, who had worked as a sanitary worker in the Dharmasthala gram panchayat till 2014 was initially treated as a witness with anonymity due to the nature of allegations.

However, after he claimed that this allegations were false and he was “tutored” by the activists, he was named as accused number-1 in the preliminary chargesheet filed by the SIT in November, 2025, while arraigning Mattennavar, Thimarody, Jayant, and Gowda as co-accused.

It has been contended in the petition by Chinnaiah that his rights are being affected as he is not able to get justice due to delay in conduct of investigation against other accused persons and filling of final investigation report for want of forensic sciences laboratory reports by the SIT.