The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a 2018 money laundering case against Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar. The case relates to the allegations of tax evasion and hawala transactions worth crores.
A bench Comprising Justice Surya Kant and Justice KV Viswanathan passed the order on an appeal by the Congress leader against an August 2019 order of the Karnataka High Court. The matter relates to a money laundering case registered in 2018 after around Rs 7 crores of cash was seized during Income Tax raids in 2017 from premises in Delhi that were linked to Shivakumar.
Consecutively, the Enforcement Directorate arrested DK Shivakumar in September 2019, after days of interrogation. Nonetheless, he was granted bail by the Delhi High Court by an order passed in October 2019, which was later upheld by the Supreme Court.
Before his arrest, Shivakumar and others had filed a petition before the Karnataka High Court challenging the Enforcement Directorate’s summons issued to them. Justice Aravind Kumar in August 2019 dismissed the aforesaid writ petitions. The Congress leader then moved the apex court against the same.
The apex court on Tuesday set aside the Karnataka High Court order and quashed the proceedings. Before the Supreme Court today, Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra appeared for Shivakumar. Senior Advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi and S Nagamuthu appeared for the others accused.
Meanwhile, the Karnataka High Court is yet to consider a petition lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to revive its probe against DK Shivakumar for allegations of corruption against the now Deputy Chief Minister of the State. Notably, a similar plea by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA is also pending before the Karnataka High Court.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar has repeatedly accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of harassing him by misusing central agencies.