BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday reserved the order on a petition questioning the first information report (FIR) registered by the city police against Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, former MP Naleen Kumar Kateel, officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and BJP office-bearers on charges of extortion over electoral bonds.
Justice M Nagaprasanna reserved the order after hearing the arguments of senior counsel Prashant Bhushan for the complainant and senior counsel K G Raghavan for petitioner Naleen Kumar Kateel, who challenged the legality of the FIR by the Tilak Nagar police. The FIR was based on an order passed by a magistrate on a private complaint filed by Adarsh R Iyer, co-president of Janaadhikaara Sangharsha Parishath.
Bhushan contended that this was a classic case of extortion where accused number 2, the ED, created fear in certain companies to purchase electoral bonds in a quid pro quo. Unless there is a specific bar that only an aggrieved person can move the court, anybody can move the court seeking directions to register the case against the accused.
Raghavan argued that the complainant must be the victim and the accused must be the beneficiary for the complaint of extortion to be registered. However, the complainant is not the victim here. If this case is permitted to continue, this will take the law into an absurd situation, he said.