At a Cabinet meeting last week, the Karnataka government decided to withdraw the sanction that the previous BJP-led government accorded to the CBI on September 25, 2019, to investigate a Rs 74-crore disproportionate assets case against state Congress chief and Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar. The Cabinet decided that the sanction was "not in accordance with law" on account of clearances not being obtained from the Assembly Speaker to allow the investigations against Shivakumar, then just an MLA. The government’s move comes despite the Karnataka High Court observing in April that the consent was an executive order, which gave general consent to the CBI to investigate, and not an order under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, that mandates clearances from the Speaker. The Karnataka High Court is scheduled to hear on November 29 (Wednesday) an appeal that Shivakumar filed against the April order. The government’s decision is expected to provide relief to Shivakumar in the case in which a chargesheet is likely to be filed soon. Even if the courts do not accept the Cabinet’s decision, it is likely to buy him a few months. What is the CBI case against Shivakumar? In August 2017, the Income Tax (I-T) department conducted searches at properties linked to Shivakumar. At the time, he was accompanying 42 Congress MLAs from Gujarat to a resort near Bengaluru, seen as an attempt to help senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel win the Rajya Sabha polls from the western state and foil the BJP’s alleged attempts to poach legislators. The I-T department filed a complaint of tax evasion and false evidence against Shivakumar in 2018 after allegedly finding Rs 8.59 crore in cash at four Delhi properties linked to his associates. The findings led the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to register a money laundering case against the Congress leader. The ED subsequently arrested Shivakumar in September 2019 and he was released on bail the following month. The ED wrote to the BJP government in Karnataka in September saying it should order a CBI investigation into the suspicion of corruption that emerged during its money laundering probe. The government then granted the CBI consent. The CBI filed an FIR in October 2020 against Shivakumar on charges of corruption based on the I-T department’s findings. The CBI has alleged that Shivakumar amassed Rs 74.93 crore disproportionate to known sources of income between April 2013 and April 2018, when he was the energy minister in the Congress-led Karnataka government. What is the status of the CBI probe The CBI told the Karnataka High Court two months ago that it was in the final stages of investigation. The court on October 19 directed the agency to complete the investigation within three months. Shivakumar had earlier approached the High Court with pleas to quash the case. A single-judge Bench on April 20 rejected Shivakumar’s plea against the BJP government’s sanction to the CBI. In the arguments in the HC, the CBI said the order to facilitate its investigation was merely a general consent order and not a formal sanction that would have required the Speaker's clearance. Is this the only case Shivakumar is facing Shivakumar has been acquitted in some of the tax evasion cases filed by the I-T department. The ED has concluded in its chargesheet, filed in 2022, that Shivakumar's associates assisted him “in laundering unaccounted cash by providing their premises/transporting money/ projecting the tainted money as a part of their business''. What's the political uproar now The BJP has called the Congress government’s decision “unconstitutional” and “contempt of law”. It plans to stage protests in Bengaluru and has said it will approach the Governor. “The blatant favouritism shown by the present government to safeguard an accused is one-of-its-kind in the entire country and the whole state is put to shame by the action of the cabinet,” new BJP state president B Y Vijayendra said on social media. False propaganda is being made to create a narrative that previous BJP Govt had given consent for investigation against @DKShivakumar solely on the basis of an oral instruction of then CM @BSYBJP. This probably is being done to create an impression that the consent given was… — Vijayendra Yediyurappa (@BYVijayendra) November 24, 2023 The Congress has alleged that the CBI probe is “politically motivated”. Following the Cabinet decision, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said, “The Speaker has to give his permission and then the orders can be issued by the CM. Here the (former) CM has also passed an order without waiting for the opinion of the advocate general. The CM has instructed the chief secretary orally and the chief secretary ordered that the case be given to CBI.” State Minister Priyank Kharge said, “The BJP only targets leaders of the Opposition. There is no action against BJP leaders irrespective of what they do – whether it is daylight robbery or murder. They use legal action only against us to scare us. I am stating very clearly that the permission given to CBI for investigation and prosecution is illegal. It is politically motivated. It had been done to curb the activities of the Opposition.” What it means for Shivakumar Shivakumar needs to come clean of the corruption charges to stand any chance of becoming Karnataka CM in the future. Shivakumar is hoping that he will be made CM in 2025 when the Congress government is halfway through its five-year term. The Congress has been united in its defence of the Cabinet decision. Shivakumar who lost to Siddaramaiah in the race for the top job, and as a compromise got the party to appoint him the only deputy CM, may become more accommodating of senior state leaders in the coming days. Shivakumar — who became the state Congress chief in March 2020, six months after he was released on bail in the ED case — is now expected to go full throttle in supporting the Congress’s efforts to win a maximum number of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka next year.
