Congress leader D K Shivakumar helped the party in the Karnataka floor test.
Based on a complaint by Income Tax department regarding instances of alleged tax evasion by senior Congress leader in Karnataka and Irrigation Minister D K Shivakumar, an economic offences court in Bengaluru has registered a case of tax evasion and filing of false evidence against him and issued summons to him to appear on August 2.
The I-T department filed the complaint on the basis of findings from searches on nearly 60 premises linked to Shivakumar and his associates in August 2017 and specifically the finding of Rs 8.59 crore in cash at four Delhi properties, including two apartments, linked to him.
A case has been registered against Shivakumar under section 276C (1) (tax evasion) and 277 (false statement) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 and under section 193 (false evidence) and 199 (false statement in evidence) read with section 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.
Four associates of the minister, Sachin Narayan, Sunil Kumar Sharma, Anjaneya Hanumanthaiah and N Rajendran, have been booked for “abetment of false returns’’ and providing false evidence. The case registered on June 18 on the basis of the complaint by I-T department is the fourth case filed against Shivakumar by the department since carrying out searches on premises linked to him in August 2017 while he was sheltering 42 Gujarat MLAs against alleged poaching by BJP ahead of Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat.
In February, the I-T department filed three cases against Shivakumar pertaining to the searches where he was accused of causing disappearance of evidence and destruction of evidence for allegedly tearing up a paper in his possession during the searches.
The economic offences court summoned Shivakumar in all three cases and granted him bail in March.
Shivakumar has called the latest case a continuation of vendetta politics by the Centre. “I am being targeted. We are waiting and watching and we will respond at the appropriate time,’’ Shivakumar said Thursday.