The Karnataka State Bar Council (KSBC) has excluded Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, who is facing criminal cases, from the list of guests invited for the Karnataka State Level Advocates’ 10th Conference to be held in Mysuru on August 12. Mr. Shivakumar’s name has been left out from the fresh set of invitation cards printed by withdrawing the earlier invitation, in which he was among the guests along with the Chief Minster, a judge of the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice of the High Court, and the Law Minister.
The KSBC has reviewed its decision of inviting Mr. Shivakumar after the former Law Minister S. Suresh Kumar questioned whether the judges of the Supreme Court and the High Court, as per the protocol followed by the judiciary, share the platform with Mr. Shivakumar when he is facing criminal cases and the petitions filed by him related to these cases are pending adjudication before these two courts.
Mr. Kumar had posed this question on his Facebook page as well as in a letter to the Registrar General of the High Court. The basis for his question was an incident that he had encountered when he was serving as Law Minister. He had said that enquiries on criminal cases were made with the persons who were supposed to share the dais with the then Chief Justice at the inaugural function of Holalkere taluk court building in Chitradurga district.
