NEW DELHI: Supreme Court Monday dismissed a plea for initiation of criminal investigations against former Karnataka BJP state unit president Nalin Kumar Kateel, saying there was no evidence to back the accusations that he threatened industrialists with raids by ED to extort huge donations for the party through electoral bonds.
Appearing for activist Adarsh R Iyer, advocate Prashant Bhushan faced a barrage of questions from a bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar, which said, “Vague assumptions and complaints can never be the ground for initiation of criminal proceedings or investigations against any person.”
Bhushan named Vedanta and Arvind Pharma as the two industries who were allegedly coerced to donate to the party through electoral bonds, which a five-judge bench of the court had in Feb last year annulled terming these instruments as ‘unconstitutional and manifestly arbitrary’.
The CJI-led bench said Karnataka HC was right in allowing Kateel’s plea for quashing of the case, ordered to be initiated by a trial court, as the complainant had not produced even an iota of evidence to back his vague allegations. “Inquiry cannot be based on speculations and assumptions. You are attempting to initiate a roving inquiry,” the bench told Bhushan. “If your petition is accepted, no one in this courtroom will be safe as a roving inquiry can be started against each and any person.”
The trial court was completely silent as to what prima facie evidence it had to order initiation of proceedings.
On Dec 3 last year, Justice M Nagaprasanna had dismissed the ‘extortion complaint’ against Kateel, saying the complainant was unrelated to the transaction and has no locus standi to maintain the extortion complaint.
