Former Minister D.K. Shivakumar has moved the High Court of Karnataka challenging the order passed by a special court, constituted exclusively to deal with criminal cases against MPs and MLAs in in the State, refusing to discharge him from a case related to his wilfully attempting to evade tax and filing a false income tax statement.
The special court, in its June 25 order, had said that at this stage, no acceptable grounds were being made out by Mr. Shivakumar and two of the other four accused for discharging them from the case.
Mr. Shivakumar and two other accused have contended in their petition before the HC that the special court did not properly consider their contentions. The criminal case was initiated in June last year by the Income Tax Department based on documents recovered during raids conducted in 2017 on Mr. Shivakumar and his associates in some locations in Delhi and Bengaluru. The department has also alleged that Mr. Shivakumar was engaged in transporting huge amounts of unaccounted for cash on a regular basis through hawala channels and that he had set up an extensive network of persons and premises across Delhi and Bengaluru to transport and utilise this cash.
