CBI moves Supreme Court against Karnataka govt's order to transfer probe against Shivakumar to Lokayukta

New Delhi: The CBI has approached the Supreme Court against the Karnataka government's decision to transfer its investigation into alleged disproportionate assets acquired by Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, to the state Lokayukta.

The agency is aggrieved with the Karnataka High Court's August 29 order which dismissed petitions filed by it challenging the Congress government’s decision to withdraw consent for investigating the corruption case against Shivakumar.

The High Court had termed the petitions as “non-maintainable”.

The High Court also dismissed the CBI’s challenge to the state’s November 28, 2023, decision to withdraw consent for probing Shivakumar’s alleged illegal assets.

The CBI filed a disproportionate assets case against Shivakumar on October 3, 2020, with the consent of the previous BJP government on September 25, 2019.

The central agency alleged that Shivakumar accumulated Rs 74.93 crore of wealth disproportionate to known sources of income from April 2013 to April 2018, while serving as the energy minister in a previous Congress government.

Notably, the High Court's decision had already been challenged before the apex court by Karnataka BJP MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal.

On September 17, 2024, the court had sought a response from the state government and Shivakumar on his petition.