Karnataka HC stays ED move to summon Congress MLA’s lawyer in online betting case

The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday stayed the move by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to summon advocate Anil Gowda, a legal consultant to Congress MLA from Chitradurga KC Veerendra (Puppy), in a money laundering case over illegal online and offline betting and gambling.

Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum said that the summons is stayed until the Supreme Court decides on a pending question over the scope of the ED’s powers in summoning lawyers. The court said the ED was restrained from taking any coercive action against petitioner Gowda until further orders or until the Supreme Court settled the issue.

Additional Solicitor General Aravind Kamath said Gowda was not being summoned as a lawyer but over his alleged role in the illegal betting case.


The ED had, last month, conducted search operations at 31 locations across the country, including Gangtok, Chitradurga, Bengaluru, Hubballi, Jodhpur, Mumbai, and Goa (including five casinos such as Puppy’s Casino Gold, Ocean Rivers Casino, Puppy’s Casino Pride, Ocean 7 Casino, and Big Daddy Casino), in the case against the Congress MLA and others over illegal online and offline betting.

The search, according to an ED press note, revealed that the MLA was running several online betting sites in the name of King567, Raja567, etc. His brother, KC Thippeswamy, was accused of operating three business entities from Dubai — Diamond Softech, TRS Technologies, and Prime9 Technologies — which are related to the call centre services and gaming business of the MLA.

The ED had arrested Veerendra in Gangtok on August 23.