New Delhi
The Supreme Court on Monday announced that a bench led by Justice Surya Kant will hear pleas challenging Karnataka’s decision to withdraw consent for investigating a disproportionate assets (DA) case against Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar.
A bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran noted that these pleas were previously handled by another bench headed by Justice Surya Kant.
Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, representing Shivakumar, said the CJI had earlier emphasized that political scores should not be settled in courts. The Supreme Court directed that the pleas be listed before the Justice Surya Kant-led bench for hearing.
In October last year, the CBI approached the apex court against the state government’s withdrawal of consent for probing the DA case. BJP leader Basanagouda R Patil Yatnal also filed a plea. The apex court sought responses from Shivakumar and the Karnataka government.
Previously, the Karnataka High Court had dismissed petitions by the CBI and Yatnal, labeling them “non-maintainable,” challenging the Congress government’s decision to withdraw consent and its subsequent referral of the Rs 74.93 crore DA case to the Lokayukta.
The CBI alleged that Shivakumar accumulated assets disproportionate to his known income between 2013 and 2018, when he was a minister in the previous Congress government. The DA case was registered on October 3, 2020, based on consent given by the BJP government in 2019, following a reference by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Shivakumar had been arrested by the ED in September 2019 over alleged money-laundering charges and released on bail in October 2019.
