The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a petition by Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar challenging the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)’s registration of a case against him for allegedly possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.
A bench comprising Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma ruled that Shivakumar’s plea lacked merit and found no sound reason for the court to interfere with the ongoing proceedings. “How could the proceedings be quashed against you? This is a case under the Prevention of Corruption [PC] Act…We are not going to quash it,” the bench told senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared for Shivakumar.
Rohatgi argued that the case was registered without obtaining prior approval from the state government under Section 17A of the PC Act, which protects public servants from prosecution for decisions made as part of their official duty. Section 17A was introduced by an amendment effective July 26, 2018.
The bench noted that the issue of prior sanction had been referred to a larger bench following a split judgment by a two-judge bench in January 2024. The judges had disagreed on whether the need for approval under Section 17A applied to all pending cases or only those registered after the amendment took effect. “As and when that question is decided by the larger bench, your matter will also get decided. How can your case be quashed on the basis of a split judgment? We are not interfering right now,” the bench told Rohatgi.
Rohatgi further urged the bench to issue a notice on whether multiple FIRs could be lodged based on the same event, contending that the Income Tax Department, Enforcement Directorate (ED), and the CBI had initiated different cases following a 2017 raid by tax authorities. The bench disagreed, stating, “These are different offences under different statutes. The Income Tax authorities cannot prosecute under the PC Act,” and dismissed Shivakumar’s petition.
The CBI filed an FIR against Shivakumar in October 2020 on charges of corruption, following sanction obtained from the B S Yediyurappa-led BJP government in September 2019. This action was based on findings from Income Tax Department searches in August 2017 at approximately 70 premises linked to the Congress leader. The CBI alleged that Shivakumar amassed wealth amounting to ₹74.93 crore, disproportionate to his known sources of income, from April 2013 to April 2018, during his tenure as the energy minister in the Congress-led Karnataka government.
In April 2023, a single judge of the Karnataka High Court rejected Shivakumar’s plea to quash the sanction given in September 2019 by the BJP government. Shivakumar argued that the state had only given its consent and not a formal sanction. In October 2023, the High Court also rejected Shivakumar’s plea to quash the entire CBI case against him, granting the CBI three months to complete its investigation.
The High Court emphasized that the investigation was based on extensive documents and evidence collected by the Income Tax Department, ED, and the CBI. The Supreme Court, in March this year, quashed another case lodged against Shivakumar under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with the 2017 raid, ruling that a criminal conspiracy under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) cannot be the sole basis for a money-laundering probe.
Shivakumar was arrested by the ED in September 2019 and released on bail a month later. In 2019, the ED requested the Karnataka BJP government to investigate potential corruption in the money laundering case by ordering a CBI probe against Shivakumar. In November 2023, the Karnataka Cabinet decided to withdraw the sanction for the CBI investigation against Shivakumar. The CBI challenged this decision before the High Court, which is currently handling the issue.
Sources By Agencies