New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has fixed January 23 for hearing on Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar’s plea against the investigation of a money laundering case by the Enforcement Directorate.
A bench of Justices Pratibha M Singh and Amit Sharma adjourned the hearing of the case saying it was not possible for it to commence hearing on Tuesday.
The bench said, “The lawyers appearing for the parties say that the case will take some time. It will not be possible to start the hearing as the partially heard cases are already listed in the court. List it on January 23.
Shivakumar had moved the high court in 2022 seeking quashing of the investigation, including the summons issued to him in the ECIR (complaint) filed by the agency in 2020 following the alleged disproportionate assets case.
The senior lawyer appearing for the petitioner said his arguments would take ‘half a day’ as it involves important issues. In his petition, Shivakumar challenged the money laundering investigation against him on several grounds, in which he argued that the ED was re-investigating the same crime which had already been investigated in another case in 2018.
In his pleas filed through advocates Mayank Jain, Parmatma Singh and Madhur Jain, Shivakumar said the present investigation constitutes the second set of proceedings against him and is an abuse of process of law and malicious exercise of power.
The high court on May 2, 2023, ordered that the ED would be ‘bound’ to its stand that no coercive action would be taken against Shivakumar in the case. The ED has opposed the plea on the grounds that the two ECIRs filed by the agency relate to different cases with some overlapping of facts which cannot be termed as re-investigations.
The investigating agency argued that the two ECIRs against the petitioner were based on different facts and even the offenses prescribed in the two cases were different and the quantum of income earned from the crime involved was also different.