Fresh ED summons to Cong K’taka chief in money laundering case

PTI, Nov 6, 2022, 8:48 AM IST

The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Congress Karnataka president D K Shivakumar and his MP-brother D K Suresh to depose before the investigating officer on November 7 in the alleged National Herald money laundering case.

“The Investigation Officer (IO) for the National Herald and Young India case has now changed. Me and my brother received summons day before yesterday (Thursday) to depose with certain documents on November 7,” Shivakumar told reporters here.

He said though he has furnished certain documents, the ED has asked for a few more, which they would produce before the IO.

According to him, the ED and the CBI have registered separate cases against him.

“The ED and the CBI have filed a case against me in the disproportionate assets case. I have moved the Delhi High Court saying that this cannot be done. We have to see what law says,” he said.

He wondered why the probe agencies were after him.

“I am continuing the legal battle. I don’t know why they are torturing me with their repeated summons,” he said.

The latest round of questioning pertains to Shivakumar and Suresh donating an unspecified amount of money in the past to Young India, the company that owns National Herald.

The agency wants to know the details of the transactions, sources said.

Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others like Mallikarjun Kharge and Pawan Bansal have been questioned by the ED over the last few months in the National Herald money laundering case.

Shivakumar first got in the ED crosshairs when he was arrested by the agency on September 3, 2019 following multiple rounds of questioning in a case that emerged from an Income Tax Departmental action against him.

The Delhi High Court granted him bail in October that year.

In May this year, the agency filed a charge sheet against him and some others linked to him in this case.

The case was registered after taking cognisance of a charge sheet (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 of rupees.

The department accused Shivakumar and his alleged associates of transporting huge amounts of unaccounted cash on a regular basis through hawala channels with the help of three other accused.