BENGALURU: In a relief to former BJP MP Naleen Kumar Kateel, the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday quashed the First Information Report (FIR) registered against him on the charges of extortion over electoral bonds by the city police.
The FIR was registered in compliance with the order passed by a magistrate based on a private complaint.
Justice M Nagaprasanna pronounced the order that the crime registered in so far as the petitioner--Kateel questioning the legality of the crime registered against him is quashed. The detailed order is yet to be available.
Tilak Nagar police registered the crime against Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, former Member of Parliament Naleen Kumar Kateel, officials of Enforcement Directorate (ED), office bearers of BJP on the charges of extortion over electoral bonds on an order passed by a magistrate on a private complaint filed by Adarsh R Iyer, the Co-President of Janaadhikaara Sangharsha Parishath (JSP) over electoral bonds.
Immediately after registration of the crime, Kateel moved the high court.
Kateel through his counsel contended that those documents prima facie demonstrate that no case of extortion is made out in the complaint or in the reference made by the magistrate seeking to investigate the matter.
The complaint itself is so vague and does not make out any ingredient of extortion qua the complainant. Section 384 cannot be invoked by any person. It is an exception to the concept of any person setting the criminal law into motion, he argued.
Countering it, the complainant’s counsel vehemently refuted the petitioner’s arguments to contend that this is a classic case of extortion where accused number 2, the Enforcement Directorate have out fear in certain companies to take electoral bonds as a quid pro quo.
The Apex court while dealing with the issue has left it open to the aggrieved to recourse to remedies available under the law governing both criminal procedures.
Taking a queue from the order passed by the apex court, the complaint is filed before the magistrate and therefore the crime should be permitted to be investigated, he argued.