Karnataka Congress MLA DK Shivakumar who was being grilled by the Enforcement Directorate over his alleged involvement in a money laundering case, has been arrested for ‘not cooperating’. He has been arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The ED had been quizzing him since last five days over his alleged involvement in money laundering case and he was formally arrested at around 8:40 PM on Tuesday, 3rd September.
As per reports, he was also questioned over his links to Sunil Kumar Sharma, the proprietor of Sharma Travels, to Karnataka Bhavan employee Anjaneya Hanumantha and Sunil Kumar Sharma’s driver N Rajendra.
The alleged money laundering by DK Shivakumar came to light after raids by the tax officials on August 2, 2017, on Shivakumar’s residence in New Delhi, which led to the seizure of unaccounted cash worth Rs.8.59 crore without evidence of its source of income.
The tax agencies had filed cases against Shivakumar and four other persons associated with him under Sections 277 and 278 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 and Sections 120(B), 193 and 199 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Basing on the charge sheet filed by the I-T officials, the ED had last year booked a money laundering and hawala transaction case in September last year.
Along with DK Shivakumar, his business associates Sachin Narayan, Sunil Kumar Sharma (owners of Sharma Travels) were also booked and Anjaneya Hanumant and Rajendran, the employees of Karnataka Bhavan in New Delhi, where the cash was found, have also been named as the co-accused.
Rajendran is a caretaker of Karnataka Bhavan and also works for Sharma, the proprietor of Sharma Travels, which runs a luxury bus service. According to the ED, DK Shivakumar and SK Sharma had set up a hawala network to launder money from New Delhi to various parts of the country. The ED suspects that Hanumanthaiah, the employee of Karnataka Bhavan, was responsible for storing the unaccounted money.
Shivkumar has been arguing that the case against him is an I-T department case and ED has nothing to do with it.
