The Supreme Court on Tuesday, March 5, dismissed the case against Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar in a money laundering case filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in 2018. The court allowed the appeal by Shivakumar against a Karnataka High Court ruling which had upheld a city court order refusing to dismiss the money laundering case. The investigation by ED under Sec 120B of the Income Tax Act has been disallowed.
The SC judgement comes as a relief to Shivakumar, who faced searches, seizures, arrest and even jail time in the case. The ED case against DK Shivakumar was filed after the Income Tax Department submitted its chargesheet.
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The Income Tax Department began investigating him in 2017 and they had filed a chargesheet alleging money laundering in the Economic Offences court in 2018 after they recovered Rs 8.83 crore in cash during a search at his properties. Shivakumar was accused by the I-T officials of developing a hawala network to route money to the Congress party. The ED then began its own investigation under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and section 120B of the Income Tax Act. ED submitted its chargesheet in May last year.
In August 2019, the High Court dismissed his petition seeking protection from arrest. Subsequently, he was arrested in September 2019 by ED as the central agency alleged that he was not cooperating with the probe. He was lodged in Tihar jail for 50 days before he was granted bail by the Delhi High Court. The ED investigation piggybacked on the I-T Department’s charges and accused Shivakumar of tax evasion.
Read: DK Shivakumar summoned by the ED once again in money laundering case
The CBI had also conducted searches in educational institutions run by Shivakumar in connection with another investigation on disproportionate assets. His daughter Aishwarya, who is involved in the running of educational institutions, was also questioned by the CBI officials.