Will the I-T case against Shivakumar rattle coalition govt in Karnataka?

The Special Court for Economic Offences in Bengaluru had, on Monday, issued summons to Medical Education Minister D.K. Shivakumar based on a complaint filed by the Income Tax department, accusing the minister of wilfully evading tax and filing false statement.

Shivakumar, along with four others—Sachin Narayan, Sunil Kumar Sharma, Anjaneya Hanumanthaiah and Rajendra N—is the accused in a case relating to unaccounted cash recovered from four flats in Delhi in August 2017. The accused now have to appear before the court on August 2.

According sources, the I-T sleuths recovered unaccounted cash worth Rs 8.59 crore from Safdarjung Enclave apartments in Delhi in August last year. The flats belonging to Shivakumar and his associates were allegedly used to stash illegal cash. In his statement, the minister is said to have admitted that around Rs 41 lakh of the total cash seized belonged to him and that it was the income earned from his ancestral agricultural land. He, however, failed to provide evidence to substantiate this claim.

In the 33-page complaint filed by deputy director (Investigations) of Income Tax department T. Sunil Gautam, the accused have been charged under IPC sections 193, 199 and 210B, and Income Tax Act sections 276C(1), 277 and 278, and CrPC 200. While Narayan is known to be Shivakumar's business partner, Hanumanthaiah is a liaison officer at Karnataka Bhavan, Delhi, and Rajendra handles cash transactions of Shivakumar in Delhi. The complaint mentions that Shivakumar had invested illegal cash in real estate business.

While this is the fourth case filed against Shivakumar following the raids, he had managed to secure bail in the other three cases pertaining to tax evasion and destruction of evidence. In August, when I-T sleuths raided Eagleton resorts on the outskirts of Bengaluru (where Congress MLAs from Gujarat were camping), Shivakumar had allegedly torn some sheets of paper despite officials asking him to hand over all the documents in his possession. The officials found that the paper carried details of transactions in codes. During the raids in Delhi too, I-T sleuths reportedly found a diary at Rajendra's house which had coded information on financial transactions.

The news of I-T summons to Shivakumar has rattled the Congress party and its coalition partner JD(S). On Wednesday morning, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, who was heading to Vidhana Soudha to attend a series of meetings, rushed to his father and former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda's residence and held an hour-long meeting with his father and brother H.D. Revanna.

“We will back Shivakumar if he has not violated the law,” said Kumaraswamy later.

The chief minister is in a tight spot as the BJP might up the ante against the government and demand the resignation of Shivakumar. It is no secret that Shivakumar played a prominent role in installing the coalition government. The Vokkaliga strongman had not only set aside his personal rivalry with the Gowda family to facilitate the formation of the coalition government, but also had gone the extra mile to keep the MLAs together amid fears of the saffron party trying to “poach” them.

Bangalore Rural MP and Shivakumar's younger brother D.K. Suresh dubbed the case a political conspiracy by Amit Shah. “My brother has spoilt BJP's plan of forming the government in the state. He has nothing to do with the cash recovered from the flats in Delhi. They are accusing him of hawala transactions when we have no idea what it is. They claim that a diary recovered from one of the flats has some entries and codes. Now, the Sahara diary had Modi's name. Some PSU audits had Modi's name. Does the law apply differently to different people,” asks Suresh.

“Let the Centre and media do what make them happy. If people think they can break or intimidate me, I will not bend. My relatives and friends are inconvenienced too. I too have enough diaries with me,” said Shivakumar.