Tax office to attach Karnataka Congress Minister’s property

Bengaluru, Jan 7 (IANS) The Income-Tax (I-T) Department would soon issue orders for attaching the property of Karnataka's Congress Minister D.K. Shivakumar, a top official said on Monday.

"The case (investigation) on Shivakumar is in progress. We will soon be issuing orders to attach his property," Karnataka Director-General of Income-Tax (Investigation) B.R. Balakrishhnan told reporters here.

The official, however, declined to give details about the case and the value of the Minister's property to be attached, location and its nature.

The imminent orders stem from the interrogation the I-T sleuths did with the 56-year-old state Water Resources Minister on January 3 in connection with the alleged tax evasion, money laundering and seizure of cash worth crores from his premises in Bengaluru, Kanakapura and New Delhi during the investigations since August 2017.

Teams of I-T sleuths searched Shivakumar's residence in early August 2017 when he was looking after then Congress legislators from Gujarat at a resort near Bengaluru.

The three-day searches were conducted under Section 132 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 as an evidence gathering exercise in compliance with the statutory requirements.

Shivkumar was then Energy Minister in the previous Congress government. He is a lawmaker from Kanakapura Assembly segment in Ramaganaram district.

One of the richest politicians in the country, Shivakumar declared assets valued at Rs 840 crore in his nomination papers on April 19 for the May 2018 Assembly elections in the southern state.

On September 15, 2018, the Special Court for Economic Offences granted bail to Shivakumar and three others in a criminate case the I-T Department had filed for alleged evasion of tax and filing of false tax returns.