The Supreme Court
on Tuesday dismissed a money laundering probe against Karnataka Deputy Chief
Minister DK Shivakumar.
The Congress
leader had moved the top court against the Karnataka High Court order that
refused to quash the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summons issued to him in an
alleged case of money laundering.
A bench of
justices Surya Kant and K V Viswanathan granted the relief to Shivakumar.
The case dates
back to August 2017 when the Income Tax department had carried out searches at
multiple premises in Delhi as part of its alleged tax evasion probe against
Shivakumar, his alleged business associate and liquor trader Sachin Narayan
(45), another associate Sunil Kumar Sharma (46) who operated a fleet of luxury
buses, 49-year-old Karnataka Bhawan (Delhi) employee A Hanumanthaiah and former
state government employee and caretaker posted at the Karnataka Bhawan Rajendra
N (76).
The department
during the searches had seized more than Rs 8.59 crore, out of which more than
Rs 41 lakh has now been adjusted as tax liability of Shivakumar and more than
Rs 7.58 lakh as that of Sharma after they claimed the money as their
agriculture income and business income, respectively.
The tax
department later filed a charge-sheet before a Bengaluru court on charges of
tax evasion against all the accused and the Enforcement Directorate took
cognisance of this complaint to file a money laundering case in 2018.