ED chargesheets Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar in money-laundering case

Bangalore: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday filed a prosecution complaint (equivalent to a chargesheet) against Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar in connection with a money-laundering case it registered against him in 2018. A former Karnataka minister, Shivakumar is currently out on bail in the case.

The ED arrested Shivakumar in September 2019 in the case, in which it had also arraigned as accused Haumanthaiah, an employee at Karnataka Bhavan in New Delhi, and others. This criminal case was filed based on an Income Tax department chargesheet filed against Shivakumar and others before a court in Bengaluru for alleged tax evasion and hawala dealings.

Shivakumar has in the past denied any wrongdoing and has said he was being targetted for having played an instrumental role in keeping the Congress flock together during Rajya Sabha polls in 2017. He had arranged the stay of 44 Congress MLAs from Gujarat in a Karnataka resort when senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel was contesting to secure a Rajya Sabha seat. Following this, I-T searches were conducted against him and the ED subsequently took action.

Based on a reference sent by the ED, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2020 registered a case of disproportionate assets against Shivakumar.

The ED alleged that the Congress leader’s wealth grew exponentially during his two tenures as state minister between 2004 and 2018. The agency put under scanner various projects granted by the then Karnataka governments through the ministries of urban development and power when Shivakumar was a state minister.

Sources said that the ED investigations had found that a major part of Shivakumar’s over Rs 800-crore wealth was made during his tenure as minister in the urban development and power ministries in Karnataka.

The agency, sources claimed, has found that multiple companies — some of them owned directly by Shivakumar — entered into agreements with firms that were granted projects by the state urban development ministry between 1999 and 2004. Shivakumar was then the minister of the urban department in the SM Krishna government.

Similarly, sources said, during his tenure as power minister between 2014 and 2018, Shivakumar’s wealth grew exponentially. Several projects undertaken by the government in this period and firms engaged in implementing them had been put under scanner by the ED.

The ED claimed to have found that several companies entered into land development agreements with firms that were granted urban development-related projects. Several suspected shell firms and contracts granted during the tenure of Shivakumar as power minister were also being probed.

Shivakumar, in his election affidavit in 2004, had declared a wealth of Rs 7 crore. This grew to more than Rs 800 crore in 2018. In fact, between 2013 and 2018, his wealth grew by over Rs 600 crore.