I-T case: Special offences court grants bail to D K Shivakumar

Team Udayavani, Mar 23, 2018, 9:58 AM IST

Bengaluru: Energy Minister D K Shivakumar was granted bail on Thursday by the special court for monetary offenses in the Income Tax case against him.

DK Shivkumar was charged under  276-c(1) of the Income Tax Act  intentional attempt to evade tax and sections 201 and 204 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), causing disappearance and destruction of evidence relating to an offence

The Magistrate court had taken cognisance of a procecution complaint by the Income Tax authorities in February, and issued summons to Shivakumar to show up before the court. The leader showed up before the court on Thursday morning and his counsel moved a safeguard application, which was presented for hearing at 3 pm.

Shivakumar was conceded conditional bail guiding particularly not to mess with evidence. The bail was executed for an individual obligation of Rs 25,000, alongside two sureties. The minister’s counsel Sheshachala said the charges squeezed against Shivakumar were bailable.

Additional Solicitor General of the Karnataka High Court Prabhuling K Navadgi objected against granting bail, saying that on August 2, 2017 when the IT conducted raid at Eagleton Resorts I-T officials found a slip in the minister’s wallet, which they asked him to surrender, but he tore it.

“He (Shivakumar) had conceded this in an announcement recorded by the I-T authorities, saying that he felt nervous and tore it.”

The authorities at that point remade the torn bits of paper and found certain passages, especially two figures of ‘5’ and ‘5’ which specified the names of ADN, Kaizen and E-Infrastructure. Every one of these organizations are possessed by two people. Shashikanth and Somashekhar, Navadgi said in the court.

In light of this note, the I-T division directed autonomous pursuits in November 2017 on the premises of these two people. Whenever stood up to, the two conceded that they were given an advance of Rs 10 crore by D K Shivakumar (5+5) through someone else. There were an aggregate of five such business partners of the clergyman, including the previously mentioned team.

There was another passage (8) in the note, against Somashekhar’s name. Navadgi said Somashekhar confessed to have taken an advance of Rs 8 crore. All these co-identified with the sections on the note and the exchanges have not been appeared by the assessee (Shivakumar) in his profits. This demonstrated there was an attempt at tax avoidance, Navadgi told the judge. Since the slip was torn, it was an attempt to crush evidence and a by all appearances case was made out, he said.

After the start of arraignment, Shivakumar had issued legal notification to every one of these observers to pull back their statements against him. These individuals have really pulled back their statements. Consequently, it was implored the court that granting of bail would bring about respectability of examination being traded off.