SC upholds interim stay on CBI probe into D K Shivakumar's disproportionate assets case

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The Supreme Court of India has declined to intervene in the interim stay issued by the Karnataka High Court regarding the state's approval for the CBI to investigate the disproportionate assets case involving Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar.

Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma, in their ruling, stated that as the impugned order is interim, they are unwilling to interfere, especially when the CBI has already applied to the vacation of the stay.

The apex court disposed of the CBI's special leave petition against the Karnataka High Court's interim order from June 12, 2023.

The court urged the high court to expedite the hearing and resolution of the CBI's application and the pending appeal, preferably within two weeks.

Shivakumar had contested the consent order issued by the then B S Yediyurappa government on September 25, 2019, filing a plea that was dismissed by a single-judge bench in April 2023.

The CBI alleges that the Deputy Chief Minister has accumulated Rs 74.93 crore in wealth disproportionate to known sources of income during his tenure as the energy minister in the Congress-led Karnataka government from April 1, 2013, to April 30, 2018.

The high court's division bench, in its June 12, 2023 order, granted an interim stay on the government order of September 25, 2019, citing Shivakumar's counsel's argument about potential harm to the appellant without the stay and minimal prejudice to the respondents.

The CBI had initiated an FIR against Shivakumar in October 2020, accusing him of corruption based on the income-tax department's findings from searches conducted in August 2017 at approximately 70 locations linked to him."