The case against Mr Shivakumar had been registered in October 2020.
Bengaluru:
In a setback for Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, the Karnataka High Court has dismissed his petition seeking the cancellation of the CBI’s disproportionate assets case against him.
Lifting its interim stay on the probe on Thursday, the court ordered the agency to complete the investigation and submit its final report within 3 months.
Justice K Natarajan noted that the petition had been filed after a long delay and that most of the CBI’s investigation had already been completed.
On Monday, the Supreme Court had refused to vacate the stay after the CBI had approached it. Additional Solicitor General SV Raju had said 90 per cent of the CBI’s investigation was complete but it could not proceed further because of the interim stay, which had been granted by the Karnataka High Court on June 12.
The Supreme Court had also sought Mr Shivakumar’s response to the CBI petition by November 7.
The case against Mr Shivakumar, which was registered in October 2020, had alleged that there had been a disproportionate increase in his assets between 2013 and 2018. It had claimed that the assets of Mr Shivakumar had gone up by nearly five times, from Rs 34 crore to Rs 163 crore during this period.
After the case had been registered, Mr Shivakumar had said it was a continuation of the BJP’s “vendetta” politics against him.
The case had also been investigated by the Enforcement Directorate and the Income Tax Department. The ED had arrested Mr Shivakumar in connection with a money laundering case in 2019, and the Delhi High Court had granted him bail a month later.
