D.K. Shivakumar
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The Lokayukta police have registered a disproportionate assets (DA) case against Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar. This follows the Congress government withdrawing consent to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for the DA case against him on November 23, 2023, and referring the case to the Lokayukta police.
The CBI has challenged both orders of the State government — of withdrawal of consent and referring the case it to the Lokayukta police — before the High Court of Karnataka and the petitions are pending.
Meanwhile, the Lokayukta police have registered an FIR in the case and have written to the CBI seeking the case file to be handed over to them.
“This has now set in motion a conflict between the Central and State agencies — the CBI and the Lokayukta police,” a senior official said. Since the CBI had challenged the State government’s decisions, it was unlikely to hand over the case file to them and without that, the probe in the fresh FIR would be a non-starter, he added.
“We have not conducted any preliminary inquiry. We have only replicated the FIR filed by CBI in the case on October 3, 2020, and are awaiting the case file from the CBI,” a senior Lokayukta police official said.
The CBI FIR alleged that during the check period of 2013 to 2018, Mr. Shivakumar and his family members had acquired DA to the tune of ₹74.93 crore, 44.93% to their known sources of income.
‘It was wrong to give case to CBI’
Responding to the new FIR against him by Lokayukta police, Mr. Shivakumar told media persons on Tuesday that he would continue his legal fight. “The then Advocate-General had opined that my case cannot be handed over to the CBI, a copy of which I have secured through the Right to Information Act, 2005. So it is wrong that the then B.S. Yediyurappa-led government handed over my case to the CBI overruling this opinion by the AG. So, our government has withdrawn consent to the CBI and referred the case to the Karnataka Lokayukta,” he said.