CBI moves Supreme Court after Karnataka withdraws probe agency's consent to interrogate DK Shivakumar

New Delhi:

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Karnataka government's decision to withdraw its consent to the probe agency to probe the disproportionate assets (DA) case against Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar.

On November 23, 2023, the current Karnataka Cabinet headed by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah held that the previous BJP government's 2019 move to give consent to the CBI to investigate the DA case against Shivakumar was not in accordance with the law and consequently decided to withdraw the approval. ,

On 29 August, the Karnataka High Court declared as “non-maintainable” the petition filed by the CBI and BJP MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal challenging the Congress government's decision to withdraw the consent.

However, Patil challenged the high court order in the apex court, which had sought response from Shivakumar and the state government.

On September 17, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjwal Bhuyan issued notice to Shivakumar and the state government on the petition filed by Patil.

On August 29, the high court had dismissed the petition, which also challenged the state government's December 26, 2023 order, which referred the Rs 74.93 crore DA case to the Lokayukta for investigation.

The CBI had alleged that 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.

Based on the consent given by the BJP government on September 25, 2019, following a reference by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to investigate corruption allegations emerging from the Income Tax probe, the CBI registered a DA case against Shivakumar on October 3, 2020. Did.

Later the BJP government gave approval to the CBI to prosecute Shivakumar.

The politician was arrested by the ED in September 2019 on the basis of alleged money-laundering charges arising from the Income Tax Department's investigation against him between 2017 and 2019. He was released on bail in the ED case in October, 2019.

The apex court on March 5 quashed the money laundering case against Shivakumar, saying it should be linked to a scheduled offence.