The Supreme Court has rejected the petition filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation challenging the Karnataka High Court verdict, which stayed investigation against Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar in a case related to disproportionate assets.
The Bench of Justice Bela M. Trivedi and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma passed the orders on Friday.
The Apex Court, however, urged the High Court to consider CBI’s plea seeking vacation of stay on probe against the Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and the appeal pending before it as expeditiously as possible, preferably within two weeks.
The Apex Court noted that since the impugned order was interim in nature, it was not inclined to interfere with the same, particularly when the petitioner (CBI) had already filed an application for vacation of the stay granted in the impugned order passed by the High Court, before the High Court.
CBI had filed a special leave petition against the June 2023 order of the Karnataka High Court Division Bench, which temporarily stayed the sanction granted by the state government to investigate the Congress leader’s role in a corruption case arising out of allegations regarding disproportionate assets.
On July 31, the Apex Court had upheld the Karnataka High Court order, which granted an interim stay on probe against the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president in a disproportionate assets case.
The Bench led by Justice B.R. Gavai refused to entertain the petition filed by CBI against the High Court verdict on the grounds that the present SLP arose purely out of an interlocutory order.
However, the Apex Court kept all the questions available to the parties open and granted liberty to the petitioner to approach the High Court for expeditious disposal of the case.
The top court of the country further directed the High Court to consider the matter on its merits.
On February 10, the High Court of Karnataka stayed the CBI investigation in a case registered against Shivakumar under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act. The High Court had extended the stay repeatedly on different dates.
The case pertained to a raid conducted by the Income Tax Department in 2017 against Shivakumar. On the basis of this raid, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had started a probe against the Congress leader under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Later, the CBI sought sanction from the state government to file an FIR against Shivakumar, which was granted on September 25, 2019.
CBI booked the Congress leader on October 3, 2020 under the PC Act. The KPCC chief approached the High Court against the sanction and proceedings against him.
He alleged that CBI was applying mental pressure on him ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections by repeatedly issuing notices to him, even though the case dated back to 2020.