DK Shivakumar to skip ED summons to attend Congress worker’s birthday bash

Bengaluru, November 07: Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar is likely to skip the Enforcement Directorate’s summons in connection with the alleged National Herald money laundering case. The reason: attending a party worker’s birthday bash. “I will not appear before ED tomorrow, [I] will be participating in a party worker's birthday event,” Shivakumar said. 

 

 

The Karnataka Congress president and his brother DK Suresh were summoned to depose before the investigating officer on Monday, November 7, as part of the ED’s probe into the National Herald money laundering case.

 

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. Congress President Sonia Gandhi and parliamentarian Rahul Gandhi were earlier questioned in the National Herald case.

 

 

 

The federal probe agency had questioned Shivakumar on October 7 after he presented himself at its Delhi office. Before that, he had appeared before the ED on September 19, when he was quizzed with regard to another money laundering case linked to alleged possession of disproportionate assets.

 

Shivakumar 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 ED had arrested Shivakumar on September 3, 2019 in another money-laundering case and the Delhi High Court granted him bail in October that year. The agency had in May this year filed a charge sheet against him and others in this case which was registered after taking cognisance of a Income Tax department charge sheet filed against him.

 

The fresh case, according to sources, is based on an FIR filed against him on corruption charges. In the first case, the ED had charged Shivakumar under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The agency began its investigation in September 2018, based on a chargesheet filed by the Income Tax department against a close associate of DK Shivakumar and staffer at the Karnataka Bhavan in Delhi along with others.

 

According to sources, the Income Tax department found cross-border hawala transactions along with a network of people, and premises across Delhi and Bengaluru to transport and utilise the unaccounted for cash.