BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Thursday made it clear that the benefit of the interim stay on the criminal proceedings initiated by the I-T Department before the Special Court for Economic Offences for alleged evasion of tax is only for the petitioner and not for Medical Education Minister D K Shivakumar and three others.
Justice B Veerappa made this clear after hearing the I-T Department’s objections to the stay granted in so far as Sachin Narayan, one of the five accused in a case registered by the I-T Department for alleged willful evasion of tax and filing false I-T returns, after the I-T department seized Rs 8.59 crore during a raid at a flat in Delhi in 2017.
Additional Solicitor General Prabhuling K Navadagi argued the petitioner had got a stay from court by suppressing material facts. The petitioner Sachin’s counsel did not disclose before the court about prosecution launched by I-T Department and thereafter Special Court for Economic Offences issued summons to accused, he said.
The counsel for the petitioner disputed arguments of Navadgi and said the facts of the case were narrated in the petition. Then the court made it clear that the stay granted for criminal proceedings against is only for Sachin.
Sachin had claimed that it was Commissioner of I-T who was the competent authority to give sanction to prosecute accused as per Section 279 of the I-T Act. But, in this case, the Principal Director (Investigation) had given sanction and this was bad in law. After hearing it, the HC had stayed the sanction granted to the I-T Department to prosecute Shivakumar and four others.
As the sanction order was common to all the five accused, the court has also stayed all further proceedings initiated against all them based on the sanction order dated May 28, 2018, until further orders.Later, appearing before the Special Court on August 2 in response to the summons, Shivakumar, his business associate Sachin Narayan, Sunil Kumar Sharma, proprietor of Sharma Transports, Anjaneya, working as Assistant Liaison Officer in Karnataka Bhavan at Delhi and N Rajendra, a retired caretaker of Karnataka Bhavan, have got interim bail.