BENGALURU: Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president D K Shivakumar on Sunday said that he will not appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday in connection with the National Herald case, as he has to participate in a party worker’s birthday event.
“I will not appear before the ED on November 7. I will be participating in a party worker’s birthday event”, a defiant Shivakumar said.
Earlier on Saturday, the Karnataka Congress chief said that he will be taking a decision on whether or not he will be appearing before the probe agency as he is occupied with the party national president Mallikarjun Kharge’s programme on that day.
The investigative agency had summoned the Congress veteran and his brother D K Suresh to appear before the agency. “My brother and I have been summoned. I am looking at it. I am occupied with our national president’s programmes on November 7. I will take a decision on it”, Shivakumar had said earlier.
On October 7, the ED recorded the statement of Shivakumar and his brother D K Suresh for over four hours in connection with the National Herald money laundering case. Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi have also been questioned earlier in the case.
After his questioning by the ED last month, Shivakumar told reporters that he was asked ‘a lot of questions’ about Young Indian, the company that owns National Herald, his family members and institutions linked to him. “I did not carry the relevant documents and agreed to send them (to the ED) by email as soon as possible,” the 60-year-old KPCC president had said.
Shivakumar had also appeared before the ED on September 19 in Delhi where he was questioned with regard to another money laundering case linked to the alleged possession of disproportionate assets. The working president of Telangana Congress J Geeta Reddy and a few other party leaders have also been questioned by the agency with regard to alleged similar transactions made by them in the past.
Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and other senior Congress leaders like current national party president Mallikarjun Kharge and Pawan Bansal have also been questioned by the ED over the last few months in the National Herald money laundering case. The Gandhis are the majority shareholders of Young Indian.
Shivakumar had been in the ED’s crosshairs since being arrested by the agency on September 3, 2019, following multiple rounds of questioning in a case that emerged from action by the Income Tax department against him. The Delhi High Court granted him bail in October that year.
However, in May this year, the agency filed a chargesheet against him and some others linked to him in the case. The case was registered after taking cognizance of a chargesheet (prosecution complaint) filed by the Income Tax department against them in 2018 before a special court in Bengaluru on charges of alleged tax evasion and hawala transactions worth crores.
The I-T department has accused Shivakumar and his alleged associates of allegedly transporting huge amounts of unaccounted cash on a regular basis through ‘hawala’ channels with the help of three other accused. (ANI)