Karnataka HC.
Credit: DH Photo
Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court on Thursday reserved its verdict in the petitions filed by BM Parvathy, wife of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, and Minister for Urban Development and Town Planning Byrathi Suresh, challenging the summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the MUDA alternative sites allotment case.
Justice M Nagaprasanna reserved his judgment after hearing the counsels for the petitioners and the ED.
Senior advocate Sandesh Chouta, appearing for Parvathy, submitted that there are no required ingredients to invoke provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering (PML) Act. He said the object of the PMLA is to prevent laundering and when proceeds of crime are returned back to the appropriate authority then the question of laundering does not arise. He further said that it is baseless to allege that the allotment of sites itself is an offence of proceeds of crime.
“I am the wife of the chief minister of the state. I would have a moral responsibility to ensure that such kind of allegations should be doused. Hence, I returned the sites to the rightful authority. However, the same can’t be admitting guilt,” he said.
Senior advocate CV Nagesh, appearing for Byrathi Suresh, argued that there are no materials available to connect the petitioner as he became a minister only in June 2023 and the alleged allotment to the wife of the Chief Minister happened in 2021. He further said that Suresh is not even named in the predicate offence (the crime being investigated by the Lokayukta police).
On the other hand, appearing for the ED, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Aravind Kamath contended that the crime is not confined to 14 sites allotted to the wife of the Chief Minister. He said the complaint before the special court for MP/MLAs alleged that MUDA has been systematically granting and allotting the sites violating every rule in the book which caused a loss of Rs 5,000 crore to the state exchequer.
He further submitted that ED had merely issued summons and the inquiry at present is only civil in nature. “We may treat the petitioner/s as witnesses. There is a predicate offence. Pursuant to that proceeds of crime have been generated. We have registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR). We have merely summoned and inquiry is civil in nature. All we (ED) want them to produce certain documents, disclose their property and account details since proceeds of crime are generally purchased in the names of relatives,” Aravind Kamat said, adding that once it attains the characteristic of proceeds of crime, by returning the sites one cannot cleanse the crime committed.
In regard to the petition by Suresh, the ASG said that one of the officials, during the investigation, has stated that he was subjected to pressure from the office of the minister to do certain allotments. “We want to know as minister of UDD, whether he was involved in a whole lot of allotment of sites. We have questioned his private secretary and a couple of people, whom we have examined, have dropped names. We want to know whether there is any transfer of proceeds of crime in the name of his (Suresh’s) relatives. This is because the previous MUDA commissioner had allotted sites in the names of his relatives,” Kamat said.