Supreme Court assigns CBI plea on Shivakumar case to Justice Kant’s Bench

The Supreme Court on Monday (September 22, 2025) made it clear that a Bench led by Justice Surya Kant would hear pleas challenging Karnataka’s decision to withdraw consent to investigate a disproportionate assets case against Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar.

Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai noted that the case had earlier been dealt with by a Bench led by Justice Kant.

The court was hearing a petition filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against the State government’s decision to withdraw its consent to the probe agency for investigating the disproportionate assets case against Mr. Shivakumar. BJP leader Basanagouda R. Patil Yatnal had also separately moved the top court on the issue.

The CBI has accused Mr. Shivakumar of amassing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income between 2013 and 2018, when he was a Minister in the State.

On September 17, last year, a Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan had issued notices to Mr. Shivakumar and the State government on the plea filed by Mr. Patil.

The Congress-ruled government in Karnataka had found the earlier BJP regime’s decision to give consent to the CBI erroneous in law, and had withdrawn the consent.

The Karnataka High Court had found the petition filed by CBI against the withdrawal “non-maintainable”, while dismissing the case in August 2024.