NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to examine validity of the Karnataka government's decision withdrawing sanction for the CBI to probe disproportionate assets allegedly acquired by Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan issued notice to the Karnataka government and Shivakumar on a plea filed by Karnataka BJP MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal.
The petitioner was aggrieved with the Karnataka High Court's order of August 29, 2024 dismissing his plea.
During the hearing, the bench sought to know if Article 131 of the Constitution for filing appeal before the Supreme Court would be invoked here as it was something between the State and the State (CBI).
Senior advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for Shivakumar, defended the High Court's judgment saying that it was right, since all the investigation was between Centre (CBI) and the State. He also contended the aggrieved person here should be CBI, the consent from whom was withdrawn.
"You may be right. The High Court could have said that CBI is aggrieved party and not the other one," the bench said.
Senior advocate Siddharth Dave, appearing for Patil, said the High Court's judgment did not contain even a whisper about his locus.
The court, however, decided to examine the matter, allowing the state government and Shivakumar to raise preliminary objections.
On August 29, the Karnataka High Court dismissed petitions filed by Yatnal and the CBI challenging the Congress government’s decision to withdraw consent for investigating a corruption case against Shivakumar.
The court had termed the petitions as “non-maintainable”.
The High Court also dismissed the CBI’s challenge to the state’s November 28, 2023, decision to withdraw consent for probing Shivakumar’s alleged illegal assets.
A bench of Justices K Somashekhar and Umesh Adiga had dismissed the CBI challenge to the Congress government’s decision to withdraw consent to probe Shivakumar’s alleged illegal assets and a December 26, 2023, state order to refer the matter to the Karnataka Lokayukta for a probe. The BJP MLA’s similar plea was also dismissed.
Shivakumar's counsel had argued that the original September 25, 2019 order of the state government—during the BJP’s tenure —granting CBI sanction for investigation “reeks of malafide.”
The CBI filed a disproportionate assets case against Shivakumar on October 3, 2020, with the consent of the previous BJP government on September 25, 2019. This action was taken following a request by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to investigate corruption charges discovered during an Income Tax (I-T) Department probe.
The Congress government in Karnataka, which took over from the BJP in May 2023, revoked the consent given to the CBI in 2019 to investigate allegations of disproportionate assets against Shivakumar. This decision was made after a cabinet meeting on November 23, 2023. The Congress has indicated that the case was referred to the CBI in 2019 even before an FIR was filed in 2020.
The CBI alleged that Shivakumar accumulated Rs 74.93 crore of wealth disproportionate to known sources of income from April 2013 to April 2018, while serving as the energy minister in a previous Congress government.
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