The Supreme Court on Monday declined to lift an interim stay on the Central Bureau of Investigation’s inquiry against Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar in a corruption case, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices BR Gavai, CT Ravikumar, and Sanjay Kumar dismissed the appeal filed by the agency on the grounds that the case is pending before the Karnataka High Court.

“Since the present special leave petition arises out of purely an interlocutory order, we are not inclined to entertain…” the Bench said in its order. “All questions available to parties are kept open for adjudication by the high court.”

The court also allowed the CBI to approach the High Court with a petition to expeditiously dispose of the case.

In 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Karnataka had allowed the CBI to conduct an investigation against Shivakumar. The investigation was based on inputs it had received from the Enforcement Directorate which was conducting a separate money laundering investigation against Shivakumar.

The Enforcement Directorate had accused him of evading tax and being involved in alleged hawala transactions worth crores of rupees.

In 2020, the CBI had registered a case alleging that Shivakumar possessed disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs 74.93 crore. It had also conducted raids on 14 premises linked to Shivakumar.

On April 20, a single bench of the Karnataka High Court had rejected Shivakumar’s appeal against the state department’s sanction to the CBI.

The Congress leader had challenged this order before the division bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice MGS Kamal, which had ruled in favour of Shivakumar and granted an interim stay to the investigation.