Karnataka High Court Reserves Order On Plea By Wife Of Arrested Congress MLA KC Veerendra Challenging His Arrest Under PMLA

The Karnataka High Court on Monday (October 13) reserved its order on the petition filed by wife of Congress MLA K.C Veerendra, seeking to declare his arrest as illegal, arbitrary and violative of his fundamental rights under Article 19 & 21 and to release him.

Justice M I Arun reserved the order after hearing the parties. The plea seeks to declare that the arrest of K.C. Veerendra, as illegal and to direct Veerendra's release, arrested pursuant to the issuance of the grounds of arrest made on 23.08.2025.

Veerendra was arrested in connection with an alleged illegal online and offline betting racket. He was arrested under provisions of the PMLA.

According to the ED, the accused is allegedly involved in betting operations which spans across multiple states. The agency suspects that the seized assets are linked to proceeds of crime generated through the illegal betting network.

Senior advocate Siddharth Dave submitted that "Not one summons under Section 50 PMLA was sent to the MLA between registration of the ECIR in July till his arrest from Sikkim.”

It was also argued that the predicate offence was registered under Section 420 (cheating) IPC in 2011. He said that as per chargesheet in the 2011 case about cricket betting, no charge was framed under section 420 when it went to trial and the accused were acquitted in 2014.

He then referred to a 2015 FIR also registered under section 420 containing the same allegations of betting, which was quashed in 2016 by the High Court. He said that a third case was registered in 2016 where the MLA was not named as accused. He said that a fourth FIR was registered in 2022 where the MLA is named as fourth person. He said that the MLA was not chargesheeted in that case. As regards to a pending case referred to by ED at Horanhalli, it was said that the offence is not against the petitioner neither is he a suspect/witness in the case.

Dave referred to the grounds of arrest by the ED and said, "None of them are in the predicate offence. After registration of the ECIR on the four FIR the activities described in grounds of arrest are completely different". He also said that two other FIRs referred by ED were closed in 2024. At the time of arrest they did not have any valid grounds of arrest with them.

Additional Solicitor General Aravind Kamath contended that “We already had material and the FIR's only corroborated it. He is not just the recipient of proceeds of crime, it is our allegations that the petitioner is involved in the process of generation, concealment and other elements as mentioned under Section 3 the PMLA, in respect of proceeds of crime.”

It was said that first the agency gathered relevant information available in public domain and also conducted a social media analysis. Preliminary analysis of the information gathered indicated that the Accused was involved in operating casinos in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Georgia and had also set up online betting platforms under the names of King567 and other 567 Gaming universe.

The ED also argued that the accused is in lawful custody and the appropriate remedy would be to challenge the remand order. The agency has said that to contend that detention is illegal is not right.

As a result of criminal activity huge amounts of proceeds of crime were generated. It was transferred to tour operators and the petitioner's husband travelled to Dubai. They have home in Dubai, Goa. This has been corroborated with statements. I have not proceeded on the casual opinion that someone is rich so he has committed an offence. We have months of evidence", ASG had argued.

It is claimed that having regard to the scale of operation and the volume of games conducted online since 2021, the amount of generation of proceeds of crime is in excess of Rs. 2,000 crores from transaction details submitted by a single payment gateway, as per the investigation as on date. It believes that investigation is required to unearth more proceeds of crime

The ED also said that the arrested accused is the protagonist of the criminal activity and proceeds of crime. It was also argued that Money laundering is a standalone offence under PMLA and it can be prosecuted and punished independently of the underlying "predicate offense" from which the "proceeds of crime" were generated.

Further it was said that the technical quashing of FIRs does not obliterate the proceeds of crime, the agency is well within its jurisdiction to investigate the offence of money laundering, it is submitted that even if one FIR survives, investigation under PMLA would continue.

With respect to the arrest he submitted that the agency had complied with all the constitutional and statutory safeguards. The remand order has been passed by a competent court and the husband is not in illegal detention.

Case Title: R D Chaitra AND Directorate of Enforcement

Case No: WP 26754/2025

Appearance: Senior Advocates Siddhartha Dave, HS Chandramouli, Kiran Javli for Advocates Prateek Chandramouli, Rajath, Nakul Chengappa, Aaron Thomas and Shashwath for Petitioner.

Additional Solicitor General Aravind Kamath a/w CGC Madhukar Deshpande for Respondent.