Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, July 15: In a setback to the Congress leader, the Karnataka deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar, the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed his plea to quash a case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against him in an alleged disproportionate assets case.
A bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma said it was not inclined to interfere with the Karnataka high court order. “Sorry. Dismissed,” the bench said.
The Supreme Court was hearing a petition filed by Mr Shivakumar against the October 19, 2023, order of the Karnataka high court which rejected his plea. The high court had also directed the CBI to conclude the investigation and file the report within three months. The CBI has alleged that Mr Shivakumar amassed assets disproportionate to his known sources of income between 2013 and 2018. He was a minister in the previous Congress government during this period. The amount in question is believed to be ₹ 74 crore.
“This is a setback. What to do? This is unfair,” Mr Shivakumar said commenting on the apex court order. He labelled it as “unfair” and said, “I will look at all the legal aspects and see how I can file an appeal. Everyone knows how political and vindictive… my issues have been going on. When the BJP government was there they gave (the CBI) permission to register a FIR. I asked for it to be squashed but they said they cannot…”
“At the same time the Karnataka government (after the Congress came to power) withdrew permission given to CBI and handed over case to the Lokayukta… so now CBI is continuing to investigate. All this despite the government withdrawing consent,” Mr Shivakumar said.
Accusing the BJP, he said, “All of the scams have been created by the BJP. The BJP tenure is the father of scams which is why they have been thrown out by people. Now, we are trying to clean up everything. They aren’t able to digest this since their names will come out.”
The Congress government in the state last year withdrew consent for the CBI’s inquiry. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah claimed his predecessor, the BJP’s BS Yediyurappa green lit the probe “illegally”. The decision was criticised by the opposition BJP and JDS, which slammed the “immoral” move to “protect” Mr Shivakumar.
The FIR was filed by the CBI on September 3, 2020. DK Shivakumar challenged the FIR in the high court in 2021. The CBI has challenged the Congress government’s decisions: one from November 28, 2023, withdrawing consent for the agency to investigate Shivakumar’s assets, and another from December 26, 2023, referring the matter to the Karnataka Lokayukta.
In addition to seeking to quash these decisions, the CBI has requested an interim stay on the two government orders.
Originally, the CBI case, along with a similar petition by BJP MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, was brought before a single judge of the high court. However, on January 5, 2024, the judge referred the case to the Chief Justice of Karnataka to assign it to a larger bench due to the complex legal issues involved.
The CBI registered a disproportionate assets case against Shivakumar on October 3, 2020, based on consent from the previous BJP government on September 25, 2019, following a referral from the Directorate of Enforcement related to corruption charges that emerged after an Income Tax probe.
The Congress government, which replaced the BJP in Karnataka in May 2023, withdrew the consent given in 2019 after a cabinet decision on November 23, 2023. The Congress has argued that the case was referred to the CBI in 2019 even before an FIR was registered in 2020.
