The Karnataka High Court has issued a notice to the CBI on a petition filed by state Congress chief DK Shivakumar seeking to quash the FIR registered in a disproportionate assets case against him.
A single-member bench headed by Sunil Dutt Yadav heard the matter.
Senior counsels BV Acharya and CH Jadhav who argued on behalf of Shivakumar submitted that the FIR filed on October 3, 2020 was illegal.
Shivakumar's lawyers said the rule to be followed in disproportionate assets cases was that prior approval of the competent authority under Section 17 'A' of the Prevention of Corruption Act has to be done. They claimed norms were not followed in this regard.
"No details of income, assets and expenditure statement of the applicant during the check period. Nowhere in the FIR has it been explained what the elements of the preliminary investigation are. Hence, the CBI has failed to follow the guidelines," one of his lawyers said
Originally, the petitioner was from a farming family, and it was wrong to include the names of the family members in the FIR registered against him in this case,' he objected.
The Income Tax Department conducted a search of Shivakumar's properties in Karnataka and Delhi on August 2, 2017. This matter is pending before a Special Court in Bengaluru.
In August 2018, the Enforcement Directorate filed a case based on the IT Department's search. A charge sheet was filed in this case.
In September 2019, the ED wrote to the State government to take action against Shivakumar for money laundering.
On September 25, 2019 the state government gave sanction to the CBI to proceed against Shivakumar. After a preliminary enquiry, the CBI filed the FIR on October 3, 2020.
( With inputs from ANI )
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