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The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Karnataka government and its Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar on a plea by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for the restoration of a corruption probe against Shivakumar.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan sought a response from the state and Shivakumar on the plea of CBI. On November 23, 2023, the current Karnataka cabinet headed by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, held the previous BJP government's 2019 decision to give consent to the CBI to investigate the disproportionate assets (DA) case against Shivakumar was not by law and withdrew the consent. On August 29, the Karnataka High Court held as "non-maintainable" a petition filed by the CBI and a BJP MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal challenging the Congress government's decision to withdraw the consent. Challenging the High Court's order, the CBI has approached the apex court. Earlier, the top court had issued a notice in Yatnal's appeal challenging this High Court order. The CBI had alleged that Shivakumar amassed assets disproportionate to his known sources of income between 2013 and 2018. He was a minister in the previous Congress government during this period. The CBI registered the DA case against Shivakumar on October 3, 2020, based on the consent given by the BJP government on September 25, 2019, following a reference by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to investigate corruption charges emerging from an income tax investigation. (ANI)
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