Shanmugam Manjunath (23 February 1978 – 19 November 2005) was a sales officer (grade A officer) for the

Indian Oil Corporation Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL; d/b/a IndianOil) is a central public sector undertaking under the ownership of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India. It is headquartered in New Delhi. It is a public sector un ...

who was murdered for sealing a corrupt petrol station in

Lakhimpur Kheri Lakhimpur Kheri district is the largest district in Uttar Pradesh, India, on the border with Nepal. Its administrative capital is the city of Lakhimpur. Lakhimpur Kheri district is a part of Lucknow division, with a total area of . The nation ...

, Uttar Pradesh. This incident inspired several students at

IIM The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are central government-owned-public business schools for management offering undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral and executive programmes along with some additional courses in the field of busines ...

, IIT and other institutes culminating with the IIM students setting up "The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust".

Education

Manjunath did his initial schooling from

Kendriya Vidyalaya The Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan () is a system of central government schools in India that are instituted under the aegis of the Ministry of Education, Government of India. , it has a total of 1,248 schools in India, and three abroad in Mo ...

, BEML Nagar,

Kolar Gold Fields Kolar Gold Fields (K.G.F.) is a mining region in K.G.F. taluk (township), Kolar district, Karnataka, India. It is headquartered in Robertsonpet, where employees of Bharat Gold Mines Limited (BGML) and BEML Limited (formerly Bharat Earth Mov ...

, Karnataka. He finished his 10th in 1993 and 12th std in science stream in 1995 from the same school. Later on he did his Computer Science Engineering degree from Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering,

Mysore Mysore (), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern part of the state of Karnataka, India. Mysore city is geographically located between 12° 18′ 26″ north latitude and 76° 38′ 59″ east longitude. It is located at an altitude o ...

, and an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from Indian Institute of Management Lucknow.

Opposition to corruption and murder

While working for the Indian Oil Corporation in

Lucknow Lucknow (, ) is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is also the second largest urban agglomeration in Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and divis ...

, he ordered two petrol pumps at

sealed for selling adulterated fuel for three months. When the pump started operating again a month later, Manjunath decided to conduct a surprise raid around 19 November 2005. Having not heard from his son for three days, at around 9 that night, his father, M Shanmughan, sent an

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

: "How are you?". There was no reply because that night, during his inspection, Manjunath had been shot dead in the town of

Gola Gokarannath Gola Gokaran Nath or Gola is the city, municipal board, thana and tehsil in Lakhimpur Kheri district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Gola Gokaran Nath is famous for its Shiva Temple and BHL sugar mill. Gola Gokaran Nath is also popula ...

in Lakhimpur Kheri. His body, riddled with at least six bullets, was found in the backseat of his own car, which was being driven by two employees of the petrol pump. Both were arrested and the main accused, pump-owner Pawan Kumar ('Monu') Mittal, was held on 23 November along with seven others. Indian Oil Corporation paid compensation to the family.

Murder trial

Manjunath's death came close on the heels of the assassination of

Satyendra Dubey Satyendra Dubey (1973–2003) was an Indian Engineering Service (IES) officer. He was the Project Director in the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) at Koderma, Jharkhand. He was murdered in Gaya, Bihar, allegedly for his anti-cor ...

(27 November 1973 – 27 November 2003), suspected to have been murdered for similar reasons (fighting corruption). Following the murder, there was immense media spotlight on the case. The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust was founded by IIM alumni Anjali Mullatti & H. Jaishankar. The Trust was supported by hundreds of alumni across the IIMs; as well as many well wishers; S. Manjunath's batchmates from IIM Lucknow (where he was affectionately called ''machan'') also kept the story alive.

Sessions court

The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust took up the case with determination. The Trustees and volunteers - many were students from the 2007 batch of IIM Lucknow - attended every single hearing at Lakhimpur Kheri. Ms. Kamini Jaiswal, noted Supreme Court lawyer supported the Trust in fighting the case from the beginning. The Trust lawyer Mr. IB Singhplayed a stellar and invaluable role.The Public Prosecutor Sri Chandramohan Singh, Sri Kaushal Kishor and Sri Shailendra Singh Gaur, trustees, volunteers and supporters worked hard to ensure quick justice. On 24 March 2007, in a record nine months' trial , all eight accused were found guilty by the Lakhimpur Kheri

Sessions Court A Sessions Court or even known as the Court of Sessions Judge is a court of law which exists in several Commonwealth countries. A Court of Session is the highest criminal court in a district and the court of first instance for trying serious off ...

. The main accused, Monu Mittal and 7 accomplices were convicted of murder by Sessions judge,

. Petrol pump owner Pawan Kumar Mittal, the main accused in the sensational murder, was sentenced to death by the

, while the other seven accused were given life imprisonment on 26 March 2007.

High court

The convicts challenged the

's verdict in

Allahabad High Court Allahabad High Court, also known as High Court of Judicature at Allahabad is the high court based in Prayagraj that has jurisdiction over the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It was established on 17 March 1866, making it one of the oldest high ...

. On 12 December 2009,

commuted the death sentence of prime convict Pawan Kumar Mittal to life imprisonment. The high court upheld the life sentence of five others but acquitted two other accused – Harish Misra and Sanjay Awasthi.

Supreme court

The convicts appealed to the Supreme Court in 2011. Ms. Kamini Jaiswal represented the Manjunath Shanmugam Trust and the Trustees attended every hearing. On 11 March 2015, the Supreme Court dismissed all the convicts' appeals, holding that the prosecution had proved the chain of events, needed for a case of circumstantial evidence. They will continue serving their life sentences.

Manjunath Shanmugam Trust

A pan IIM initiative, "The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust" was registered on 23 February 2006, Manjunath's birth anniversary. With immediate objectives of fighting the case, the broader agenda is to improve governance in Indian public life. On 19th November 2006, Manjunath's first death anniversary, the Trust launched India's first RTI Act Helpline. The Helpline, launched by Arvind Kejriwal and N.R Narayana Murthy, helped 10,000+ callers to use the RTI Act to fight corruption and governance issues.

Awards

Manjunath Shanmugam Integrity Award

The ''Manjunath Shanmugam'' Integrity Award carries a citation and a Rs. One Lakh Cash Award; to honour those who have reported and worked to rectify

systemic corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...

. The first Manjunath Shanmugam Integrity Award was awarded on 24 March 2007 to Prof. R.P. Singh, Vice-Chancellor Lucknow University for his extraordinary courage in taking on criminals and politicians to clean up Lucknow University and implement the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations. The award was presented in a public function by chairman and Chief Mentor of

Infosys Infosys Limited is an Indian multinational information technology company that provides business consulting, information technology and outsourcing services. The company was founded in Pune and is headquartered in Bangalore. Infosys is ...

Mr. NR Narayana Murthy. Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti president

Akhil Gogoi Akhil Gogoi is an Indian peasant leader, RTI activist and MLA from Sibsagar, Assam. Over the years he has been leading many anti-graft movements in the state. Gogoi came to national attention after he was awarded the Shanmugam Manjunath Integr ...

received the prestigious 2nd Shanmugam Manjunath Integrity Award from the Magsaysay awardee

Kiran Bedi Kiran Bedi (born 9 June 1949) is an Indian social activist, former-tennis player who became the first woman in India to join the officer ranks of the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1972 and was the 24th Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry from ...

at a function held on 28 March 2008 at the IIT Delhi Seminar Hall. Mr Gogoi who hails from upper Assam's Golaghat district has been awarded for his fight against corruption. One of the finalists, IAS officer Sri M.N. Vijayakumar, was not allowed to attend the function by his senior, Sudhakar Rao (Husband of former foreign secretary of India

Nirupama Rao Nirupama Menon Rao (born 6 December 1950) is a retired civil servant of 1973 batch Indian Foreign Service cadre who served as India's Foreign Secretary from 2009 to 2011, as well as being India's Ambassador to the United States, China and Sri La ...

). This was widely criticised by his wife Jayashree JN and was also brought to the notice of the President of India. Institute for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences (IRDS) has also been awarding the S Manjunath award for Management for its contributions to the cause of fighting corruption in corporate management.

Demands of Padma Shri Award for Manjunath

Non-governmental organisations from

, Institute for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences (IRDS) and National RTI Forum are pursuing the demand of awarding one of the

Padma Shri Padma Shri ( IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is conf ...

Awards by the

Government of India The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

to both Manjunath Shanmugam and

, the IIT Kanpur graduate who was murdered in similar circumstances while working for the

National Highway Authority of India The National Highways Authority of India or NHAI (Hindi: भारतीय राष्ट्रीय राजमार्ग प्राधिकरण) is an autonomous agency of the Government of India, set up in 1995 (Act 1988) and i ...

. They have already submitted a petition to the President and started an online campaign on social networking sites and an online petition, where more than thousand people already joined.

In popular culture

A biopic on Manjunath, titled '' Manjunath'', directed by Sandeep Varma, was released on 9 May 2014. Portions of the film were shot in his almamater IIM, Lucknow campus. Ahead of the release, the trailer of the film was shown at the alumni meet on the IIM-L campus in December 2013. The movie had a special screening on 10 May 2014 for IIM alumni in Singapore as part of the IIMPact 2014 launch event (http://www.iimpactglobal.org). Famous Indian musician Rabbi Shergill has dedicated one stanza in his song titled 'Bilqis (Jinhe Naaz Hai)' from album Avengi Ja Nahin to Shanmughan Manjunath. This song is a dedication to all those who died in vain or while supporting some cause (anti-corruption). On 19 November 2015, three students of

IIM Lucknow The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are central government-owned-public business schools for management offering undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral and executive programmes along with some additional courses in the field of busines ...

attempted

Limca Book of Records The ''Limca Book of Records'' is an annual reference book published in India documenting world records held by Indians. The records are further categorized into education, literature, agriculture, medical science, business, sports, nature, advent ...

by creating India's largest

Rubik's Cube The Rubik's Cube is a Three-dimensional space, 3-D combination puzzle originally invented in 1974 by Hungarians, Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik t ...

mosaic in honour of Manjunath Shanmugam, alumnus of IIM Lucknow. Three students of

, Manish Meshram, Panchu Ghorui and Tanuj Lodhi initiated the idea on Manjunath's 10th death anniversary. They used 23,278 Rubik's cubes t
build the mosaic
representing Manjunath's birthday (23 February 1978). Over 150 students volunteered for the record attempt. The mosaic was kept for display for three days. The record attempt allowed students to spread the idea of honesty and integrity across the boundaries and inspire young minds.

's band 3.4 presente
inspirational song
dedicated to Manjunath, The event was supported by IIM Lucknow's alumni community.

References

External links

Manjunath Shanmugam Trust homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manjunath, Shanmughan Indian whistleblowers Engineers from Karnataka Indian murder victims Deaths by firearm in India People murdered in India Assassinated activists People from Lakhimpur Kheri district People from Lakhimpur Kheri People from Kolar 1978 births 2005 deaths Indian Institute of Management Lucknow alumni Crime in Uttar Pradesh Kendriya Vidyalaya alumni People murdered in Uttar Pradesh 2005 murders in India