ED move against Siddaramaiah raises questions over fairness

The ED has moved against Siddaramaiah with no apparent basis to invoke money laundering charges.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah finds himself in the midst of a storm of legal and political challenges largely stemming from the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) issue. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has now filed a case against Siddaramaiah under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), adding to his troubles.

Central to this issue are the allegations of irregularities in the allotment of compensatory alternative sites to Siddaramaiah's wife Parvathi in exchange for her land acquired by MUDA on the outskirts of Mysuru. She has now said that she is returning the 14 plots allotted to her and the process of doing so has been initiated, but that may have come too late in this sordid saga for Siddaramaiah’s comfort.

The Chief Minister has asserted that these land transactions do not involve any monetary proceeds and thus any charge of money laundering cannot stick. But there is a view that PMLA can be applied to a broad spectrum of offences, including corrupt practices under the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) that may or may not involve direct financial transactions. That the Lokayukta FIR in the MUDA matter is under the PCA may therefore be unhelpful to Siddaramaiah. The invoking of PMLA is, however, open to court interpretation.

Concerns abound over the ED’s impartiality in filing the case against Siddaramaiah. For one, the ED was unusually quick to move against him, that too based on the Lokayukta FIR and not on any preliminary investigation of its own. Secondly, there is no apparent cause to suspect money laundering in the case. For another, the ED’s record of going after Opposition leaders in the past several years has given it the reputation of being the Centre’s handmaiden in settling political scores.

This perception is exacerbated by the stark contrast in the ED’s response to serious corruption charges against various other Karnataka politicians, including former BJP ministers and Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy (JDS), against whom prosecution has been sought by the Lokayukta. The ED’s track record of filing a large number of cases in the past 10 years but obtaining convictions in only a tiny fraction of them points to an approach that the “process is the punishment”, an observation that even the Supreme Court has made.  

The Supreme Court has also repeatedly warned the ED against vindictive conduct. These warnings should serve as a call to the agency to focus on substantial evidence rather than engaging in a politically motivated process. While it is imperative that the charges against Siddaramaiah be thoroughly probed, it is equally imperative that the due process be applied fairly. That raises the question whether the ED inserting itself into the MUDA issue at this stage meets the standard for fairness.