In a setback to former Minister D.K. Shivakumar, the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday upheld the findings of a special court, which had refused to discharge him from a case of wilfully attempting to evade tax and filing false income tax (I-T) statement that was booked against him by the I-T Department last year.
Justice B.A. Patil passed the order while dismissing petitions filed by Mr. Shivakumar, and his associates — N. Rajendra and Anjaneya Hanumanthaiah.
The petitioners had questioned the June 25, 2019 order of the special court constituted to exclusively deal with criminal cases related to MPs and MLAs in Karnataka.
“...if the factual matrix is looked into with reference to Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and other Sections of the IPC, it cannot be said that there is no material against the accused,” the High Court said while observing that the petitioners were found to have escaped payment of huge taxes that would affect the economy of the country.
The High Court also noticed that the accused persons, in their statements given before the tax authorities, had blamed each other.
As the question about the legality of sanction for prosecution, granted by the Principal Director (Investigation) is under challenge before the High Court in a separate petition that is pending for adjudication, the High Court said that they would be entitled to bring it to the notice of the special court on the outcome in the pending petition.
The criminal case was initiated in June last year by by I-T Department after analysis of documents recovered during the searches conducted in 2017 on the residence and other properties belonging to Mr. Shivakumar and his associates in Delhi and Bengaluru. The I-T Department, in its complaint before the trial court, has also alleged that “Mr. Shivakumar was engaged in transporting huge amounts of unaccounted cash on a regular basis through hawala channels” and he had “set up an extensive network of persons and premises across Delhi and Bengaluru to transport and utilise unaccounted cash.”
