Karnataka Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Byrathi Basavaraj was arrested on Thursday, February 12, at Bengaluru International Airport, nearly eight months after he was named as an accused in a real estate dispute-linked murder case. The legislator from the KR Pura constituency was apprehended by the CID shortly after arriving from Ahmedabad.
The arrest came after the MLA withdrew his bail petition from the Supreme Court on Wednesday. The withdrawal followed the CID filing a caveat seeking to be heard before any relief was granted. The development came close on the heels of the Karnataka High Court rejecting his anticipatory bail plea on February 10 and cancelling the interim protection granted to him on December 26, 2025.
According to the police, the MLA, listed as accused No. 5 in the murder of real estate operator VG Shivaprakash, alias Bikla Shiva, will be produced before the Special Court for Elected Representatives on Friday.
Bikla Shiva was attacked outside his residence near Halasuru Lake in Bengaluru on July 15, 2025. Police said he was assaulted around 8.10 pm by a group of eight to nine unidentified men armed with iron rods and machetes. The attackers arrived in a white SUV along with two-wheelers, carried out a swift assault, and fled immediately.
In its order, a Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi permitted the MLA to withdraw his plea with liberty to apply for regular bail after surrendering, and requested the trial court to decide the bail application expeditiously. The bench clarified that it had not expressed any opinion on the merits of the case.
The CID had issued a lookout notice for Basavaraj soon after the High Court rejected his plea, stressing the need for custodial interrogation. In its detailed February 10 order, the High Court observed that anticipatory bail is an “extraordinary relief” and noted that investigation material—including call detail records, location data, photographs, and allegations of threats to witnesses—required further examination. Justice Sunil Dutt Yadav also observed that interim bail had earlier been granted at a stage when the court did not have the benefit of the CID’s full submissions.
The CID told the court that the MLA had misled investigators during his July 2025 questioning by claiming he did not know key accused persons in the case. According to the agency, call detail records, mobile location analysis, and social media photographs indicated familiarity, including a joint trip to Prayagraj for the Kumbh Mela in February 2025.
Nineteen of the 20 accused have been arrested so far in connection with the murder of Bikla Shiva, who had a record of intervening in property disputes. The CID’s invocation of the Karnataka Control of Organised Crime Act (KCOCA) in August 2025 was later quashed by the High Court in December that year. The CID has challenged that decision in the Supreme Court.
During hearings on the MLA’s anticipatory bail plea, the CID placed before the High Court an analysis of Basavaraj’s call detail records to show his alleged association with several accused, including Jagadish alias Jaga, Kiran K, and Ajith Kumar. The prosecution also claimed that the victim’s mother, who initially named the MLA as an accused, had been threatened into retracting her statement but later testified about threats her son had received.