Karnataka Court Reserves Order on Probe For Consent Withdrawal for Shivakumar

The Karnataka High Court on Monday reserved its order on petitions filed by the CBI and BJP MLA Basangouda Patil Yatnal, challenging the state government's move to withdraw consent for a probe by the investigation agency in the disproportionate assets case against Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar.

A division bench, consisting of Justice K Somashekhar and Justice Umesh M Adiga, reserved the order after extensive hearings.

The CBI argued that once consent for a probe is granted by the State, it cannot be revoked, especially not retroactively. Patil's counsel supported this position, stating that the investigation should continue.

Advocates representing the Congress government questioned the legality of the consent given by the previous BJP government and argued that the petitions were not maintainable.

The CBI had earlier alleged that Shivakumar, also state Congress President, 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.

The FIR was filed by the CBI on September 3, 2020. Shivakumar challenged the FIR in the high court in 2021.

The previous BJP government had granted sanction to the CBI to prosecute Shivakumar, following which an FIR was lodged against him and investigation undertaken on alleged charges of disproportionate assets.

The Karnataka cabinet headed by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on November 23, 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. Subsequently a Government Order was issued in this regard.

Based on the Income Tax Department's search operations in Shivakumar's home and offices in 2017, the Enforcement Directorate had started its own probe against him.

Based on the ED investigation, the CBI had sought sanction from the state government to file an FIR against Shivakumar.