A Special CBI court in Delhi on Tuesday took cognisance of a charge sheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar in a money laundering case that originated from a prosecution complaint filed by the Income Tax authorities in 2018 on allegations of tax evasion and facilitating hawala transactions.
Special CBI judge Vikas Dhull took cognisance of charges under Section 3 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, Special Public Prosecutor Nitesh Rana said, adding that Mr. Shivakumar had also been summoned by the court in this case on July 1.
The ED had filed this charge sheet before a Delhi court last week. The probe agency had also arrested Mr. Shivakumar in this case in September 2019, following which the Congress leader was granted bail.
Significantly, the ED's case was triggered by the charge sheet filed by the Income Tax authorities in 2018. The probe agency has alleged that a large amount of Mr. Shivakumar's wealth was created between 2014 and 2018 during his tenure as the Power Minister of the Karnataka government and contracts granted during this time are under the agency's scanner.
Moreover, the ED has said that contracts granted to companies while Mr. Shivakumar was the Urban Development Minister between 1999 and 2004 are also under their scanner.
‘Denies any wrongdoing’
Mr. Shivakumar has in the past denied any wrongdoing and said he was being targeted by the Union government for keeping Congress MLAs together in the run-up to the Rajya Sabha elections in 2017.
In addition to this, the Central Bureau of Investigation had in October 2020 registered a disproportionate assets case against the Congress leader. This case was initiated after the ED had sent a letter to the Karnataka government in September 2019, saying it had discovered violations of the Prevention of Corruption Act by Mr. Shivakumar during their PMLA probe.
Based on the ED's letter, the State government had accorded sanction to the CBI to initiate a probe, following which a preliminary inquiry was initiated, which was turned into an FIR in 2020. In the CBI's FIR, the agency alleged that Mr. Shivakumar and his family members had amassed ₹74.93 crore in assets disproportionate to their known sources of income between April 2013 and April 2018.
However, a Special Court in Bengaluru has already discharged Mr. Shivakumar in the three tax evasion prosecution complaints filed by the Income Tax authorities. Following this, in April 2021, the Karnataka High Court upheld the special court's order discharging him in these cases.
