BENGALURU: After the Enforcement Directorate issued a fresh summons to Karnataka Congress Pradesh Committee (KPCC) president D K Shivakumar, asking him to appear before it on November 7 in connection with the ongoing money laundering case, the latter has said that he is occupied with party national president’s programme on that day.
The investigative agency 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 told ANI.
The senior Congress leader has been asked to appear at the Delhi headquarters of the federal agency, which conducts probes into financial crimes. On October 7, the ED recorded the statement of Shivakumar and his MP 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.
The statements of Shivakumar and his brother were recorded while the Congress’s ongoing ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ (Unite India rally) was passing through Karnataka. 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 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 of 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)