I-T dept grills Karnataka minister Shivakumar in tax evasion case
Bengaluru, Jan 3: Senior Karnataka minister D K Shivakumar was Thursday grilled for about three hours by the Income Tax department for alleged tax evasion, officials said.
Shivakumar, a frontline Congress leader in the state, was summoned for questioning as part of a "routine process" following searches at various properties linked to him on August 2, department sources said.
The minister had already appeared before I-T officials twice in July and August last year.
The searches were conducted after Shivakumar hosted 44 Gujarat Congress MLAs at a resort on the city outskirts to forestall alleged attempts by the BJP to poach them ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls which the then Congress president Sonia Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel won.
Last September, the Enforcement Directorate had registered a money laundering case against him and a few others for allegedly indulging in hawala transactions.
The I-T department had accused Shivakumar and his associate SK Sharma of transporting "huge" amounts of unaccounted cash on a "regular basis" through hawala channels with the help of three other accused.
The other accused are Sachin Narayan, Anjaneya Hanumanthaiah and N Rajendra.
Narayan is a business partner of Shivakumar and Sharma is the proprietor of Sharma Transports, which runs a fleet of luxury and passenger buses and provides transport services to various concerns and individuals on rental basis, IT department had said in its complaint.
Hanumanthaiah, an employee posted at Karnataka Bhavan in New Delhi, was allegedly responsible for storing and handling unaccounted cash of Shivakumar in the national capital, it had said.
Rajendra, a caretaker at Karnataka Bhavan, also works for Sharma, apart from looking after the immovable properties of Shivakumar and Sharma, it said.
Unaccounted cash of about Rs 20 crore was seized during raids in New Delhi and Bengaluru last August, and I-T officials said the money was "directly relatable" to Shivakumar.
Shivakumar, however, claimed the I-T department was targeting him and not letting him "breathe", but asserted he would fight the case legally.
A special court had granted him conditional bail in this case some time back and will hear the matter again on September 20.
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'Godman' Kharat held in 8th sexual exploitation case; court denies police remand, sends him to jail
Nashik (PTI): Police took custody of self-proclaimed godman-cum-astrologer Ashok Kharat in an eighth case related to sexual exploitation of women and produced him before a Nashik district court which sent him to jail till May 12 after rejecting the plea for his police remand on Thursday.
On April 29, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Nashik police in north Maharashtra filed a request application in the court demanding Kharat's custody in the eighth case.
After the court granted them the necessary permission, the SIT took custody of Kharat, who was in jail in connection with the seventh case of sexual exploitation registered against him.
The 'godman', named in a dozen FIRs related to rape and financial fraud, was produced before Chief Judicial Magistrate B N Ichpurani in the eighth case through video conferencing due to security reasons.
The eighth case related to Kharat allegedly sexually exploiting a woman who had approached him in search of solutions to her family problems, according to police.
During the hearing, the prosecution demanded police custody of the accused in the latest case.
However, the defence strongly opposed the demand and argued that the SIT was giving same reasons for police custody every time and there was no strong reason for accepting their plea.
The court accepted the argument put forth by the defence and remanded Kharat to judicial custody till May 12 in the eighth case.
The SIT will produce Kharat in the court on Friday again and seek his police custody in the ninth case. As the self-styled godman has been granted judicial custody in the eighth case, he will be sent to Nashik Road Central Jail and the SIT will take his custody from there.
Meanwhile, Kharat's judicial custody in the fourth case ended on Thursday. On April 18, the accused was remanded to judicial custody till April 30 in the fourth case of sexual exploitation of women.
In a related development, the SIT conducted a search at Kharat's office in the 'Canada Corner' area of Nashik city on Wednesday. A 'panchnama' (record of search and seizure proceedings) was conducted and the office was locked and sealed again.
Kharat, a well-heeled man with political connections, was arrested for the first time on March 18 after a woman alleged he had repeatedly raped her for three years.
He is accused of sexually exploiting several women by claiming to have divine powers and knowledge of black magic, and also committing large-scale financial fraud.
The SIT is conducting a probe into 12 cases of sexual exploitation and financial fraud registered against the astrologer in Nashik and Ahilyanagar districts.
