ED files money laundering case against Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday filed a money laundering case against Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah in connection with a land allotment case.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday filed a money laundering case against Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah, his wife BM Parvathi and brother-in-law Mallikarjuna Swamy in connection with a land allotment case, based on a first information report (FIR) filed by the state Lokayukta, people familiar with the development said on Monday.

Siddaramaiah was named as the primary accused, followed by his wife Parvathi as the second accused, and Mallikarjuna Swamy as the third. (PTI)

The agency officials, who didn’t want to be named, said the sections invoked in the Lokayukta FIR are part of scheduled offence and “fit for probing the charges under prevention of money laundering act (PMLA)”.

“The ECIR (Enforcement Case Information Report; ED’s equivalent of an FIR) has been filed,” said an officer.

The case, filed last week by Lokayukta, involves allegations of irregularities in land allotted to Siddaramaiah’s wife, Parvathi, by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (Muda). It came on a day Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge rallied behind Siddaramaiah amid mounting calls for the CM’s ouster.

Siddaramaiah was named as the primary accused, followed by his wife Parvathi as the second accused, and Mallikarjuna Swamy as the third. Devaraju, who sold the land to Swamy, was listed as the fourth accused, along with “others”. The FIR invoked sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 166 (disobeying the law with intent to cause injury), 403 (dishonest misappropriation of property), 406 (criminal breach of trust), and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code. It also included charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act, the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, and the Karnataka Land Grabbing Prohibition Act.

Siddaramaiah is the second sitting chief minister of Karnataka to face an FIR, after Hemant Soren of Jharkhand in 2023 and Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi in 2023.

Following ED’s filing of the FIR, Congress leader KC Venugopal said that the proceedings against Siddaramaiah are an attempt to “destabilise a democractically elected, pro-people government” in Karnataka.

In a post on X, Venugopal said, “First comes a private complaint, which is swiftly acted upon by the Governor (beyond his constitutional authority), and then the Lokayukta files an FIR which is immediately followed up by an ED case! The entire chronology of this case makes their agenda amply clear.”

He added, “Every Indian knows that ED/CBI action only means one thing - intimidation and political harassment. The entire case against Siddaramaiah ji is cooked up, designed to unseat him.”

The Karnataka Lokayukta, founded in 1984, serves as the watchdog to address corruption and public complaints against state officials. Initially seen as a powerful entity in tackling corruption, its authority to investigate was taken away in 2016 and given to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), an agency controlled by the CM’s office. However, in 2022, the Karnataka high court disbanded the ACB and reinstated the Lokayukta’s authority, transferring all active cases back to it.

The MUDA case pertains to a land deal when a 3.16 acre land plot was gifted to Parvathi by her brother, Mallikarjuna Swamy in 2010. MUDA illegally developed the land between 2011-13, following which Parvathi, in 2014, sought compensation. In 2017, MUDA agreed to compensate her, and in 2022, she was given 14 plots. The complainants argue the allotted plots were far more valuable than the original land under MUDA’s 50:50 scheme. After the controversy came to light, Siddaramaiah offered to return the 14 plots if his wife was given ₹62 crore as compensation. The MUDA 50:50 scheme, announced in 2016, entailed offering 50% of the developed sites as compensation to the original land owners. The controversial scheme was scrapped in 2023.

The CM has denied any wrongdoing and dismissed calls for his resignation, attributing the case to political moves orchestrated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “Why should I tender my resignation? You have to tender a resignation only if you have done something wrong, right? When I have not done anything wrong,” he said last week, addressing reporters at Mysuru airport.