New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday, March 5, dismissed a money laundering case registered against Karnataka deputy chief minister D.K. Shivakumar in 2018, Live Law reported.The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had registered a Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case against Shivakumar in 2018 and arrested him on September 3, 2019. Subsequently, the Delhi high court granted him bail on October 23, 2019.In August 2017, the Income Tax department had alleged that a sum of Rs 8.59 crore was seized from the Karnataka deputy chief minister’s Safdarjung Enclave apartment in Delhi, based on which a case was framed by the ED and he was arrested.Notably, the searches were carried out in the premises linked to Shivakumar at a time when he sheltered 44 MLAs of the Congress party from Gujarat at a resort outside Bengaluru ahead of a crucial Rajya Sabha poll in the western state. Late Congress leader Ahmed Patel’s fortunes were dependent on the 44 MLAs hosted by Shivakumar.Over the years, multiple properties of Shivakumar were searched on various occasions by the ED and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and his daughter Aishwarya Shivakumar, mother D.K. Gowramma and wife Usha Shivakumar were also issued summons by the ED.The Congress leader was also summoned by the ED for questioning in a separate money laundering probe into the operations of the Congress party-owned National Herald newspaper.The SC dismisses the longstanding caseThe apex court bench of Justices Surya Kant and KV Viswanathan allowed the special leave petitions filed by Shivakumar and his aide Anjaneya Hanumanthaiah against a 2019 Karnataka high court verdict upholding the summonses issued to them by the ED, as per the Live Law report.In 2019, Shivakumar had approached the Karnataka high court and sought dismissal of summons issued by the ED. However, the high court had dismissed the petition filed by Shivakumar and others in August 2019, upholding the central agency’s summonses.The primary reason cited by the single-judge bench of the high court was that section 120B of the Indian Penal constituted a stand-alone offence adequate to invoke the PMLA.Later, the Karnataka congress president and his aide approached the Supreme Court. The apex court held the high court bench’s rationale as ‘unsustainable’ in view of its recent Pavana Dibbur judgment, as per the Live Law report.Also read: The Great Crossover: Opposition Leaders Who Joined the BJP After Action by Central AgenciesIn the Pavana Dibbur case, the apex court ruled that Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code becomes a scheduled offence “only when the conspiracy is directed towards committing an offence that is otherwise scheduled. The legislative intent behind the PMLA was not to make every offence not included in the schedule a scheduled offence by applying Section 120B of the IPC,” the SC bend had noted, as per the Live Law report.It is noteworthy that a review petition has been filed by the ED against the Pavana Dibbur judgment.In Shivkumar’s case, the Supreme Court bench underlined that if the ED’s review petition related to the Pavana Dibbur judgment is accepted, then the direction by the Karnataka high court in the impugned judgment would stand affirmed, allowing the ED to seek a review or recall of the apex court’s latest order if necessary, as per the Live Law report.