Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman
Credit: PTI
Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court on Monday stayed further investigation till October 22 in the alleged case of extortion against Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and others in relation to the electoral bonds.
Tilak Nagar police in Bengaluru had registered an FIR against Sitharaman, unnamed officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), office bearers of the BJP in Delhi, Bengaluru and against Karnataka state BJP president BY Vijayendra and former state president Naleen Kumar Kateel.
Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the interim order after hearing the petition filed by Naleen Kumar Kateel. Justice M Nagaprasanna observed that it is not the case of the complainant that he has been threatened with parting with any property. “...the complainant in the case at hand, if he wants to project section 384 of IPC (punishment for extortion), should be an aggrieved informant under section 383, which he is not,” the court said.
The complainant Adarsh R Iyer, co-president of an organisation Janaadhikara Sangharsha Parishat (JSP), has alleged criminal conspiracy and extortion under IPC sections 120 (b) and 384 respectively. He had claimed that Sitharaman and ED officials “committed extortion under the guise and garb of electoral bonds and benefited to the tune of Rs 8,000 crore and more.” Senior advocate KG Raghavan, appearing for Naleen Kateel, contended that no case of extortion is made out in the complaint or in the reference made by the magistrate for investigation.
On the other hand, senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the complainant Adarsh Iyer, argued that it is a classic case of extortion. He claimed that the ED officials have put out fear in certain companies of raids and arrests. When such companies buy electoral bonds in favour of BJP, the harassment by the ED stops, he said. He said the electoral bonds were purchased by those companies as a quid pro quo and the apex court while dealing with the issue, had left it open to the aggrieved to recourse to remedies available under the law. He further submitted that criminal law can be set into motion by any individual.
The court noted that IPC section 383 (that prescribes the ingredients) mandates that any informant who approaches the concerned court or jurisdictional police should have been put into fear and due to that fear he should have delivered property to the accused.
“Nowhere the magistrate observes that it is the victim who has suffered at the hands of the petitioner, the accused, for parting away with property on a fear that is injected into him. Unless the complaint meets the ingredient of section 383 as observed hereinabove permitting investigation even prima facie till the statement of objections are filed by the respondents would become an abuse of the process of the law,” the court said.