The Supreme Court has directed that all petitions challenging Karnataka’s withdrawal of consent to probe Deputy CM D K Shivakumar’s disproportionate assets case be heard by Justice Surya Kant-led bench. The CBI and BJP MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal’s pleas are now listed before the new bench.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday directed that all petitions related to the disproportionate assets (DA) case against Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar be heard by a bench led by Justice Surya Kant.
A bench of Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran passed the direction after noting that these matters were earlier dealt with by Justice Surya Kant.
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During the hearing, senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for Shivakumar, reminded the court that the Chief Justice had earlier observed that
“political scores should be settled elsewhere and not in courts.”
Taking note of this, Chief Justice B R Gavai said,
“it would be in the best interest of justice, if the pleas are heard by another bench,”
and ordered that the matter be placed before the Justice Surya Kant-led bench.
The dispute began in October last year when the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) approached the top court challenging the Karnataka government’s decision to withdraw its consent for the probe into Shivakumar’s assets. Soon after, BJP leader Basanagouda R Patil Yatnal also moved the Supreme Court against the withdrawal of consent.
Earlier, on September 17, 2023, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan had already issued notices to Shivakumar and the Karnataka government on Yatnal’s plea.
The Congress-led Karnataka cabinet, headed by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, had on November 23, 2023, struck down the BJP government’s 2019 decision granting sanction to the CBI to investigate the case. The cabinet called the earlier consent “not in accordance with law” and withdrew it.
The Karnataka High Court later ruled the CBI’s plea and Yatnal’s petition as “non-maintainable.”
On August 29, 2023, the High Court dismissed both challenges, including objections to the state government’s December 26, 2023, order that referred the Rs 74.93 crore DA case to the Lokayukta for investigation instead of the CBI.
The CBI, in its filings, has alleged that Shivakumar had amassed assets disproportionate to his known sources of income between 2013 and 2018 when he was serving as a minister in the Congress government.
The case was formally registered by the CBI on October 3, 2020, based on consent given by the then BJP government on September 25, 2019.
The move came after a reference from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) which had flagged corruption allegations arising out of an Income Tax investigation against Shivakumar.
Following this, the BJP government also granted sanction to prosecute Shivakumar.
Earlier in September 2019, Shivakumar was arrested by the ED in connection with a money laundering case linked to an Income Tax probe carried out between 2017 and 2019. He was granted bail a month later, in October 2019.
Later, the Supreme Court quashed the ED’s money laundering case against him, making it clear that such a case
“must be linked to the scheduled offence.”
With multiple legal proceedings around the DA allegations, the matter is now set to be heard afresh by the bench of Justice Surya Kant.
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