MUDA case: Karnataka HC quashes ED summons to Siddaramaiah's wife, his cabinet colleague

Bengaluru: In a relief to Parvathy B M, wife of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, and Byrathi Suresha, Minister for Urban Development, the Karnataka High Court on Friday quashed the summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) alternative sites allotment case. Justice M Nagaprasanna passed this order while allowing the petitions filed in this regard.

In January 2025, the court had granted an interim order staying the summons issued by the ED. The ED had registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) on October 1, 2024, based on the predicate offence being investigated by the Lokayukta police in the case.

Justice Nagaprasanna indicated that he had followed the co-ordinate bench order quashing a similar summon issued by the ED against D B Natesh, former Commissioner of MUDA.

The advocates for Parvathy and Suresh had primarily relied upon the order in the petition filed by Natesh.

In the case of Natesh, the high court had said that the issuance of summons lacks legal authority where no prima facie case has been established under the PMLA, and no incriminating material elicited at the time of search and seizure.

On October 28 and 29, 2024, the Assistant Director of ED had conducted a search at the residence of Natesh, seized his mobile phone and transferred its data to a hard disk.

The court had also said that in absence of the material against the petitioner any conclusion arrived at necessitating the search does not satisfy the threshold of ‘reason to believe’, as envisaged under the PMLA, and is therefore, no more than a mere suspicion of involvement in the offence.

In addition to citing the order in Natesh’s petition, the advocate appearing for Parvathy had submitted that there are no required ingredients to invoke provisions of PMLA.

The advocate had 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.

The advocate appearing for Suresh had argued that the petitioner has been summoned despite the fact that he is not an accused in the FIR pertaining to the predicate offence, being probed by the Lokayukta police.

He had further 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.