The State Cabinet on Thursday decided that the earlier sanction given by the BJP government to hand over the case against Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as “not in accordance with law”.
With this decision, sources said, it is likely that the government will withdraw the permission accorded to the CBI in this case. Briefing reporters here after the Cabinet meeting, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H.K. Patil said: “The sanction to give the case to the CBI was taken after an oral direction from the then Chief Minister (B.S. Yediyurappa). The then Speaker’s sanction that is mandatory was not taken.”
Incidentally, Mr. Shivakumar was not present at the Cabinet meeting when the issue came up for discussion. The agency is currently investigating Mr. Shivakumar for allegedly possessing assets worth ₹74.93 crore disproportionate to his known sources of income during the period 2013-2018.
Recently, the Karnataka High Court had refused to quash the case registered against him by the CBI.
Mr. Patil said that the government had taken the opinion of the then Advocate-General and as well as the present one before holding that the decision to hand over the case to the CBI was not in accordance with law.
“Administrative approvals that will be a fallout of the Cabinet decision will come out in the next couple of days,” the Minister said. He, however, did not elaborate on that.
Asked if it was not a case of favouritism, Mr. Patil said that the legal position had been given attention. “We have gone by rules and regulations.”
The grant of permission for the CBI to probe the case was cleared in 2019 by the then State government, headed by Mr. Yediyurappa. The permission was officially granted in September 2019. Mr. Shivakumar had approached the High Court questioning the validity of the sanction. However, a single judge of the High Court had upheld the validity of sanction.
It is learnt that the Congress government had sought the opinion of Advocate-General Shashikiran Shetty. It is learnt that he favoured withdrawal of the permission given to the CBI and hand it over to the local police or Lokayukta.
The case under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act was registered by the CBI following the findings of separate investigations conducted by the Income Tax Department and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
It all started after the Income Tax Department in 2017 searched the premises belonging to Mr. Shivakumar. Following the I-T searches, the ED started its probe under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. After the alleged disproportionate assets were found during its probe, the ED wrote to the State government for conduct of investigation under the PC Act.
The CBI then sought sanction from the State government to register an FIR against him. Sanction for investigation was granted on September 25, 2019, and Mr. Shivakumar was booked by the CBI on October 3, 2020.
Mr. Shivakumar filed an appeal before a Division Bench, which, in June 2023, stayed the single judge’s order and the sanction. However, the CBI recently moved the Supreme Court challenging the stay order. The apex court had asked the Division Bench of the High Court to decide Mr. Shivakumar’s appeal in two weeks.
Now, the appeal will come up for hearing before the Bench on November 29.
