Karnataka CID moves Supreme Court for early hearing of plea against dropping KCOCA charges on BJP MLA Byrathi Basavaraj

The Supreme Court had not granted a stay, but instead ruled on January 20 that “the order of the high court shall not be relied upon as a binding precedent” while adjourning the plea for a full hearing on April 15.

However, the CID, which arrested Basavaraj on February 12, moved the Supreme Court again on February 23. The Supreme Court has provided a tentative date of March 10 for the hearing.

The CID had first moved the Supreme Court on January 3 against the high court order.

Interpretation sparks confusion

On December 19, 2025, a single-judge bench of the Karnataka High Court had set aside the invocation of the stringent KCOCA in the July 15, 2025, Bikla Shiva murder case, saying it was invoked in the absence of evidence of continuing criminal activity by an organised gang.

The Karnataka High Court quashed the order to invoke KCOCA on the grounds that no person who is accused of direct involvement in the murder case has more than one charge sheet for a crime punishable with a prison term of three years or more. The high court order scrapping the invocation of KCOCA against the BJP MLA from the K R Pura constituency also extended to the 19 other arrested accused.

A confusion has arisen following the interpretation by the high court that an attempt to murder case which attracts a punishment of up to 10 years (under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code) would not apply as an instance of a prior crime for invoking KCOCA, as it does not specifically prescribe a three-year sentence as mentioned in the Act.

According to the definition of continuing organised crime under Section 2 (1)(d) of KCOCA, it is “an activity prohibited by law for the time being in force, which is a cognizable offence punishable with imprisonment of three years or more, undertaken either singly or jointly, as a member of an organized crime syndicate or on behalf of such syndicate in respect of which more than one charge-sheet have been filed before a competent Court within the preceding period of ten years and that Court has taken cognizance of such offence.”

The Karnataka High Court ruling that KCOCA was wrongly invoked in the Bikla Shiva murder case came despite one of the accused having two pending cases in the trial stage involving attempts to murder under IPC Section 307, which is punishable by a jail term of 10 years.

“A holistic reading of Section 2(1)(d) and 2(1)(e) of KCOCA would indicate that as regards a member of the organised crime syndicate, there must be involvement of such member individually or jointly in cognizable offence punishable with imprisonment of three years or more with respect to at least more than one charge sheet having been filed in that regard before a competent Court,” the high court observed in its verdict in the BJP MLA’s case last month. “This aspect having been overlooked by the approval authority would reflect non-application of mind,” the court further said.

During the arguments in the Supreme Court on January 20, the senior counsel for the CID, Siddharth Luthra, sought a stay on the Karnataka High Court order, saying that the high court’s interpretation of a “mandatory minimum” sentence of three years for invocation of KCOCA would be chaotic.

“The biggest problem with the interpretation of this law would be what about 307 (IPC) which is punishable with life but not minimum of three years,” the three-judge bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M Panchal pointed out.

Mukul Rohatgi, the senior counsel for Basavaraj, argued that the Supreme has said that a punishment of three years or more implies a minimum of three years. The bench, however, pointed out that the word punishable under the KCOCA law means a punishment which may be imposed, and not mandatorily imposed.

The word “punishable” is not alien since the Criminal Procedure Code says that offences punishable with three years or more are cognizable offences and less than three years are non-cognizable offences, the bench observed.

“What happens when a special law imposes a minimum punishment of five years, will it become a non-cognizable offence?. This is the only part we want to clarify,” Justice Bagchi said in oral observations on January 20.

Under KCOCA, investigating agencies have a 180-day time limit to file charge sheets against the arrested accused, and there is no provision for anticipatory bail. It also allows 30 days of police custody for the accused during the investigation period, instead of the regular 15 days of custody.

Background of crime

Realtor V G Shivaprakash alias Bikla Shiva was killed outside his house on a public street near the Halasuru Lake on the evening of July 15 by a gang of armed assailants. The murder is alleged to be linked to a property dispute dating back to February 2025 between two groups staking claim to a property in the Kithaganur area of east Bengaluru.

BJP MLA Byrathi Basavaraj is alleged to be closely linked to a gang that operates in the real estate sector in his constituency. The gang members are accused in the murder case. Shiva had also filed police complaints about threats from the MLA.

Earlier, in September 2025, a special court for cases involving elected representatives had rejected a plea of six people arrested in the case who had claimed that KCOCA provisions were wrongly invoked against them since they were not involved in continuing criminal activities as described by the law.

The special court pointed out that the involvement of any one of the accused in multiple serious crimes where charge sheets are filed and taken cognisance by the courts is sufficient to bring all other accused in a case under the purview of KCOCA.

The Karnataka High Court ruling of December 19, 2025, is seen as having an impact on all cases involving organised crimes in the country if the KCOCA application is restricted to gangs with previous crimes punishable only by a strictly defined period of three years in prison.

The Supreme Court’s interim order to specifically restrict the Karnataka High Court order of December 19, 2025, only to the accused in the Bikla Shiva murder case is an indication of the wider ramifications of the new interpretation of a law meant to curb organised crime.