SC seeks Shivakumar’s reply on plea against withdrawal of consent to CBI

The Supreme Court has sought the responses of Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar and the state government on a plea against withdrawal of consent to the CBI for investigating the disproportionate assets case against him.

A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan on Tuesday (September 17) issued the notice to them on the plea filed by BJP MLA Basangouda R Patil (Yatnal), in which he has challenged the Karnataka High Court’s August 29 order rejecting his plea against withdrawal of consent.

Appeal not from CBI

Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for Shivakumar, pointed out that the CBI, which should be most aggrieved by the high court order, has not come before the top court in appeal.

“Rather, the petition has been filed in high court by a private individual,” he said, and defended the high court’s verdict.

HC order

On August 29, the high court held as “non-maintainable” a petition filed by the CBI challenging the decision of Karnataka’s Congress government to withdraw consent to it for investigating a disproportionate assets (DA) case against Shivakumar.

It dismissed the plea challenging the state government’s December 26, 2023 order referring the Rs 74.93 crore DA case to the Lokayukta for investigation.

BJP MLA’s argument

Senior advocate Siddharth Dave, appearing for the BJP MLA, told the apex court that there was not even a whisper about the petitioner’s locus standi in the judgement.

The Bench, without going further into the merit of the matter, gave liberty to Singhvi to file preliminary objections to the petition.

CBI’s case

The CBI had earlier 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.

Later, when the BJP came to power in the state, its government granted sanction to the CBI to prosecute Shivakumar.

The current Karnataka government headed by Siddaramaiah had on November 23, 2023 held that the previous BJP government’s move to give consent to the CBI to investigate the DA case against Shivakumar was not in accordance with law and decided to withdraw the sanction.

(With agency inputs)