Aides of Shivakumar will now have to appear before ED

Bengaluru, Sept 6: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday assured a Division Bench of the High Court of Karnataka that it will not arrest till September 17 the three associates of the former Minister D.K. Shivakumar if they appeared before the investigation officer for questioning as per the summons issued to them.

An assurance was given to the Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Mohammad Nawaz during the hearing of the appeals — filed by Sunil Kumar Sharma, Sachin Narayan, and Anjaneya Hanumanthaiah — challenging August 29, 2019 single judge order that had rejected their plea against summons issued to them by the ED in January. As the ED contended that the appeals filed by them were not maintainable in law before a Division Bench of the High Court and counsel for the appellants contended that the appeals were maintainable, the Bench said it would have to decide the issue whether the Division Bench had the jurisdiction to hear the appeals.

Noticing that the appellants were not summoned for questioning during the pendency of their petitions, the Bench questioned what the ED was proposed to do during the pendency of the appeals as the counsel for the appellants pointed out that fresh summons were issued to them after the dismissal of their petitions.

Following this, ED’s counsel sought 20 minutes time to take instruction from officials as the counsel was not aware of issuance of fresh summons, and later told the Bench that the appellants would not be arrested for a week or 10 days if they appeared before the ED for questioning as per the summons issued to them.

Though the advocates representing the appellants claimed that their interests in law would be prejudiced of they were to appear before the ED, which was likely to question them along with Mr. Shivakumar. who is in the agency’s custody, the Bench said such an apprehension was uncalled for as their appeals were pending for adjudication before the court. Further hearing was adjourned till September 16.

The appellants are co-accused in a criminal case filed against them by the Income Tax Department for evasion of income tax and false submission of tax statement, and they had allegedly transported unaccounted money belonging to Mr. Shivakumar through hawala channels.