DK Shivakumar approaches Karnataka HC against CBI; notice issued to central agency
Bengaluru, Aug 1: KPCC president DK Shivakumar has approached the High Court of Karnataka seeking quashing of an FIR filed against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Justice Siddappa Sunil Dutt Yadav who heard the petition on Monday ordered notice to the CBI.
Senior counsels B V Acharya and C H Jadhav who argued on behalf of Shivakumar submitted that the FIR filed on October 3, 2020 against him was illegal.
The petition says though Shivakumar is the sole accused in the case, all his family members' properties are shown as his.
"The expression 'family members' is a vague term. In the present case, neither there is number of family members mentioned nor their identity disclosed," the petition says.
"The entire FIR does not refer to the properties in the possession of the sole accused. On the other hand, the possession referred to as every stage is to the property of DK Shivakumar and his family members together," the petition says.
The argument, on his behalf, also posted out that sanction from the competent authority has not been obtained.
"The CBI has failed to follow the procedure mentioned in the CBI Manual for investigating into disproportionate assets cases. There is no A-B-C-D statement mentioned in the FIR to determine the income, assets and expenditure of the petitioner for the said check period," the petition says.
The Income Tax Department had conducted a search of Shivakumar's properties in Karnataka and Delhi on August 2, 2017. This case is pending before a Special Court in Bengaluru.
In August 2018, the Enforcement Directorate filed a case based on the IT Department's search. A charge sheet was filed in this case.
In September 2019, the ED wrote to the State government to take action against Shivakumar for money-laundering.
On September 25, 2019 the State government gave sanction to the CBI to proceed against Shivakumar. After a preliminary enquiry, the CBI filed the FIR on October 3, 2020.
This is now challenged before the High Court by Shivakumar.
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Op Sindoor demonstrated India's progression towards 'domain jointness,' says Army Chief
Bengaluru (PTI): Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi on Thursday said Operation Sindoor demonstrated India's progression towards "domain jointness" and called the military offensive carried out inside Pakistani territory a "defining case study" of operational significance of integration.
In May last year, India had launched a military response targeting terror launchpads in Pakistan post the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 Indian tourists.
"Operation Sindoor was India's most powerful tool of progression towards domain jointness. But we need to achieve domain integration and fusion," General Dwivedi said.
He was addressing the "Ran Samvad" forum on "Land Forces visualisation of Multi Domain Operation (MDO)," here.
The army chief also highlighted the creation of an information warfare organisation and a psychological defence division following Operation Sindoor.
He said, "15 per cent of our effort was on managing the disinformation campaign."
He cautioned, however, that key challenges remain, particularly in synchronising operations across strategic, operational and tactical levels and addressing the growing prevalence of hybrid or grey-zone warfare.
"These are typically below the conventional military threshold, with the goal to exploit adversary vulnerability," he said, adding that non-kinetic operations are increasingly taking precedence.
"Operation Sindoor was India's most powerful tool of progression towards domain jointness. But we need to achieve domain integration and fusion," he said.
The Chief of Army Staff said his visualisation of MDO is not of six domains operating in parallel but all of them "in constant dynamic interaction where the weight shifts and the lead changes".
The Army chief stressed that modern warfare is no longer confined to geographical boundaries or single-service dominance, but is instead defined by continuous interaction across domains, stakeholders and levels of conflict.
"We are living through a dispersed, undeclared, multi-theatre, multi-domain war of our times. The question is not whether domains interact, it is how the interface is orchestrated across the battle space," he said.
General Dwivedi drew a distinction between land domain and land forces, explaining that while the former refers to the operational space, the latter represents the actors, comprising all six domains—land, air, maritime, cyber, space and cognitive—operating in a shared environment.
He underlined that these domains are no longer siloed but function through dynamic synergy.
Elaborating on the evolving battlefield, General Dwivedi noted that MDO has transformed warfighting into a layered, three-dimensional construct.
"In MDO, the battlefield is no longer a line on a map. It's a 3D -- cyber effects shaping the cognitive space, space assets cueing targets, and electronic warfare contesting every frequency simultaneously," he said.
He emphasised that commanders must develop cross-domain situational awareness from the tactical to strategic level.
Highlighting the operational significance of integration, General Dwivedi referred to Operation Sindoor as a "defining case study".
"It was a ground intelligence network coupled with cyber and EW (electronic warfare) inputs that gave the joint army-air force targeting, while the navy's repositioning shaped the strategic calculus simultaneously. No single domain decided the operation," General Dwivedi added.
He described such mutually enabling actions as the essence of MDO.
The Army Chief observed that while domains like cyber, space and cognitive operations benefit from centralised control, land warfare continues to rely on decentralised execution, creating a complex and adaptive system that must be aligned through central intent and technological integration.
On capability development, he said the Indian Army is transitioning steadily from concept to execution under a structured transformation roadmap.
He pointed to dedicated MDO war-gaming exercises since 2024 and the joint doctrine issued in August 2025 as milestones that have provided a unified operational framework across the three services for the first time.
General Dwivedi detailed several structural reforms underway, including the operationalisation of integrated battle groups, Rudra brigades, drone units, electronic warfare formations and cyber operations nodes.
He further underscored the importance of the "three Is" —integration, informatisation and intelligentisation—driven by technology but anchored in human decision-making.
"The human must remain in the loop exercising the judgment," he asserted.
The Army Chief emphasised the need for leadership transformation in the digital age.
"Commanders must evolve into techno-commanders, to build a force that does not know where one domain ends and another begins," he said.
Outlining the future roadmap, he identified "six Ds" shaping the MDO environment—dispersion, democratisation and diffusion among them—leading to imperatives such as diversification of assets, delegation of command and distributed response.
He called for a shift from "domain silos to domain fusion", describing a six-stage progression from domain purity to complete integration.
