BENGALURU: There could be tough times ahead for Congress leader DK Shivakumar as one of his close associates in the alleged hawala operations and tax evasion case is believed to have turned himself into the authorities. Top sources told The New Indian Express that one of the four other accused in the case, who was also booked under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and earlier chargesheeted by the Income Tax authorities, has reportedly agreed to become an approver under Section 306 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
“This could mean further trouble for Shivakumar,” said the officer. Shivakumar was arrested by the ED in New Delhi on September 3 under the PMLA and is being interrogated since August 30. Incidentally, the ED on Thursday gave an undertaking before the Karnataka High Court that it will not arrest three of the other accused till September 17 if they appear for questioning when summons are issued.
The undertaking was given before a division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Mohammad Nawaz which was hearing the appeals filed by Sunil Kumar Sharma, Anjaneya Hanumanthaiah and Sachin Narayan against the order passed by a single-judge bench which had rejected their pleas questioning the ED summons. The name of N Rajendra, the fourth accused, did not figure in it.
ED is questioning Shivakumar on his association with Sunil Kumar Sharma
the I-T officer said, “The ED has been questioning Shivakumar on the source of Rs 10 crore cash that was allegedly recovered during the I-T raids on August 2, 2017 from four properties in Delhi and in Karnataka, which are said to be linked to the Congress leader and four of his associates — Sachin Narayan (business associate), Sunil Kumar Sharma (proprietor of Sharma Transport), Anjaneya Hanumanthaiah (employee at Karnataka Bhavan, New Delhi) and N Rajendra (a former state government employee). They have been chargesheeted by the Directorate of Income Tax (Karnataka & Goa) early last year.
“The I-T officials, in a search and seizure operation in August 2107, had reportedly seized Rs 6,61,26,000 from a room in flat number 201, B-5 at Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi alone, which reportedly belonged to Shivakumar. During the course of investigation, accused No. 5, Rajendra N, had reportedly told the I-Y officials that in January 2017, cash in crores was allegedly sent to the AICC on the instructions of Shivakumar, V Mulgund and Anjaneya.
The I-T department had also raided the premises of the then Karnataka Congress Secretary Vijaya Mulgund in August 2017. The accused had used coded language to escape scrutiny. ‘KG’ was the coded word for lakh (in cash) for the hawala transactions, which had allegedly come to light during the I-T investigation,” said the officer.The ED is questioning Kumar on his association with Sunil Sharma. The I-T officials had submitted in the chargesheet that they had questioned Sharma as to why he should not be considered as being involved in hawala transactions as a ‘Ten Rupee note’, which is commonly used as a unique identifier between hawala operators, was in his WhatsApp chat? “He was very evasive,” said an official source.
HDK, 15 others get summons in land denotification case
Bengaluru: A special court set up to try public representatives has issued summons to former CM
H D Kumaraswamy and 15 others in a case of alleged illegal denotification of land. The court asked Kumaraswamy and others to appear before it in person on October 4.