Delhi High Court Defers Karnataka Deputy CM Shivakumar’s Plea Against ED Probe, Next Hearing On March 10

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday deferred the hearing on a plea filed by Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, who has sought a stay on the money laundering investigation being conducted against him by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

A bench headed by Justice Navin Chawla adjourned the matter and listed it for further hearing on March 10. Earlier, on November 2, 2022, the high court had issued notice to the ED in the case.

Appearing for Shivakumar, senior advocate Kapil Sibal argued that the agency was reinvestigating a case that had already been probed.

He submitted that the ED had first registered a case in 2018 and was now reopening the same issue through another Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in 2020. Shivakumar has moved the court seeking the quashing of the entire investigation, including the summons issued to him.

Sibal also contended that Section 13 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act was unconstitutional. He questioned how two separate agencies could probe the same set of facts. While the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a disproportionate assets case against Shivakumar, the ED has initiated a parallel money laundering probe, he argued.

In its response, the ED opposed the plea, claiming that the two ECIRs were based on different facts and involved different scheduled offences.

According to the agency, the first ECIR related to an offence under Section 120B of the IPC, with alleged proceeds of crime amounting to Rs 8.59 crore. The present ECIR, however, concerns alleged disproportionate assets worth Rs 74.93 crore.

The ED said the present case stems from a separate FIR lodged by the CBI in Bengaluru on October 3, 2020, under the Prevention of Corruption Act. It added that a preliminary inquiry by the CBI’s Anti-Corruption Bureau found that Shivakumar and his family were allegedly in possession of assets disproportionate to their known sources of income between April 1, 2013, and April 30, 2018.

The agency further argued that raising the issue of double jeopardy at the investigation stage was premature. On May 2, 2023, the high court had directed that the ED would be bound by its statement that no coercive action would be taken against Shivakumar.

Notably, the Rouse Avenue Court had taken cognisance of the ED’s chargesheet against Shivakumar and four others on May 31, 2022.

The chargesheet was filed on May 26 that year. Shivakumar was arrested by the ED on September 3, 2019, and granted bail by the Delhi High Court on October 23 on a personal bond of Rs 25 lakh. The Supreme Court later dismissed the ED’s challenge to the bail order on November 15, 2019.

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