Electoral bonds row: Karnataka HC stays probe against Nirmala Sitharaman in extortion case

Bengaluru, September 30: The Karnataka High Court has stayed further investigation till October 22 in the alleged case of extortion against Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and others concerning electoral bonds. The petition was moved by former state BJP president Naleen Kumar Kateel.

Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the interim order observing that it is not the case of the complainant that he has been threatened with parting with any property. “..the complainant in the case at hand, if he wants to project section 384 of IPC (punishment for extortion), should be an aggrieved informant under section 383, which he is not,” the court said.

The complainant Adarsh R Iyer, co-president of an organisation Janaadhikara Sangharsha Parishat (JSP), has alleged criminal conspiracy and extortion under IPC sections 120 (b) and 384. The court noted that section 383 mandates that any informant who approaches the concerned court or jurisdictional police should have been put into fear and due to that fear he should have delivered property to the accused.

“Nowhere the magistrate (the special court that ordered investigation) observes that it is the victim who has suffered at the hands of the petitioner, the accused, for parting away with property on a fear that is injected into him. Unless the complaint meets the ingredient of section 383 as observed hereinabove permitting investigation even prima facie till the statement of objections are filed by the respondents would become an abuse of the process of the law,” the court said.

(Courtesy: DH)