BENGALURU: Energy Minister DK Shivakumar on Thursday appeared before the Special Court for Economic Offences who, later on, granted him bail after hearing his bail plea. The hearing was in relation to cases booked by the Income Tax department in subsequent to the raid conducted on his premises in August 2017.
Shivakumar appeared before the court in response to the summons issued to him by the Special Court on February 14, 2018. This is in relation to crores of rupees in unaccounted financial transactions found on the pieces of paper he had torn at Eagleton Resort near Bidadi when I-T department officials raided the resort on August 2, 2017.
According to the complaint, the loose sheets revealed that he allegedly lent unaccounted cash loan of Rs 12.40 crore and collected unaccounted cash of Rs 1.10 crore as interest from private persons or firms. The I-T department stated that Shivakumar had made an attempt to destroy the evidence of offence by tearing the paper into pieces which were found during the search operations.
The presiding officer M S Alva passed the order of granting bail at 3 pm, imposing conditions that Shivakumar should execute Rs 5 lakh bond in each case and not tamper with evidences nor threaten witnesses, after hearing the arguments of both the parties in the morning session.
The I-T filed these cases under I-T Act for wilful attempt to evade tax and also under IPC for allegedly causing disappearance of evidence of offence and destruction of document to prevent its production as evidence. The said allegations are pertaining to the illegal transactions of three different financial years. So, three different cases have been booked against him.
During the hearing, the counsel of the I-T department opposed the bail, contending that the accused Shivakumar tried to threaten some witnesses who gave their statements against him and later, they retracted their statement as he issued legal notice to them, for giving statement against him. In counter, the counsel of Shivakumar argued that there is no case against him as income tax evasion is not yet quantified by the I-T department. A piece of paper had no penitentiary value and hence tearing of it does not amount to destruction of evidence, he argued. The court adjourned the further hearing to April 19.
ENERGY MINISTER RUNS OUT OF ENERGY
Folding his hands while coming out of the court, Energy Minister D K Shivakumar said that he was not in any position to react on the judgment now as he had run out of energy. He told the media persons, “Namaskara to everyone. You know everything. I have run out of energy now so I would speak on some other occasion.” Shivakumar, who was accompanied by his brother and Member of Parliament D K Suresh, was present in the court till his bail applications were heard in the morning session and also during the order passed on the bail in the afternoon session.