Special offences court grants bail to D K Shivakumar in I-T case

DHNS
March 23, 2018

Bengaluru, Mar 23: The special court for economic offences on Thursday granted bail to Energy Minister D K Shivakumar in the Income Tax case against him.

The magistrate court had taken cognisance of a prosecution complaint filed by the Income Tax officials in February, and issued summons to Shivakumar to appear before the court. The minister appeared before the court on Thursday morning and his counsel moved a bail application, which was posted for hearing at 3 pm.

Shivakumar was granted conditional bail, directing specifically not to tamper with evidence. The bail was executed for a personal bond of Rs 25,000, along with two sureties. The minister's counsel Sheshachala said the charges pressed against Shivakumar were bailable.

The sections pressed against Shivakumar are 276-c(1) of the Income Tax Act – intentional attempt to evade tax and sections 201 and 204 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), causing disappearance and destruction of evidence relating to an offence.

Additional Solicitor General of the Karnataka High Court Prabhuling K Navadgi filed objections against granting bail, stating that when the search and seizure were conducted at Eagleton Resorts on August 2, 2017, I-T officials found a slip in the minister's wallet, which they asked him to surrender, but he tore it off.

"He (Shivakumar) had admitted this in a statement recorded by the I-T officials, saying that he felt nervous and tore it off.''

The officials then reconstructed the torn pieces of paper and found certain entries, particularly two figures of '5' and '5' which mentioned the names of ADN, Kaizen and E-Infrastructure. All these companies are owned by two persons. Shashikanth and Somashekhar, Navadgi said in the court.

Based on this note, the I-T department conducted independent searches in November 2017 on the premises of these two persons. When confronted, the two admitted that they were given a loan of Rs 10 crore by D K Shivakumar (5+5) through another person. There were a total of five such business associates of the minister, including the aforementioned duo.

There was another entry (8) in the note, against Somashekhar's name. Navadgi said Somashekhar admitted to have taken a loan of Rs 8 crore. All these co-related to the entries on the note and the transactions have not been shown by the assessee (Shivakumar) in his returns. This proved there was an attempt at tax evasion, Navadgi told the judge. Since the slip was torn, it was an attempt to destroy evidence and a prima facie case was made out, he said.

After the initiation of prosecution, Shivakumar had issued legal notices to all these witnesses to withdraw their statements against him. These people have actually withdrawn their statements. Therefore, it was prayed to the court that grant of bail would result in integrity of investigation being compromised with.

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News Network
March 19,2024

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Mangaluru: The Mangalore International Airport (MIA) will connect to a new domestic destination with the introduction of a non-stop flight to Tiruchirappalli International Airport in Tamil Nadu. 

The non-stop service, once-a-week, will operate on Wednesday (from TIA) and Thursday (from MIA), starting April 3. Air India Express will operate the flight.

The flight is expected to help those taking up a pilgrimage to Vailankani shrine.

Sources from the AIE said that the airline carrier decided to fly non-stop between the two southern Indian cities as a flight to Jeddah, which will start from April 3, arrives from Tiruchirappalli International Airport. 

“It is a ferry or positional flight from TIA to MIA. Instead of flying empty, the management has decided to run it as a commercial flight. This will help both passengers and the airline. The airline will deploy Boeing 737-800 aircraft with a 186-seater all-economy configuration on this route. 

The same flight, after landing in MIA, will further fly to Jeddah,” a source said. 

The flight IX 1498 will depart every Thursday at 5am from MIA to TIA. The TIA-MIA flight IX 1499 departs at 12.50pm. It is a one-hour nonstop flight. The same flights will also operate nonstop between Jeddah and MIA. 

The non-stop flight IX 499 will depart MIA at 2.50pm and reach King Abdulaziz International Airport, Jeddah at 6.25pm. The IX498, will depart from Jeddah at 7.25pm and reach MIA early at 3.40am.

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News Network
March 22,2024

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Bengaluru, Mar 22: An FIR has been registered against BJP MP Tejasvi Surya over a provocative hate post on social media, Election Commission officials said on Friday.

The move comes after a complaint filed by officials of the poll body and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) that the Bengaluru South MP, who is also the President of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, had in a post apparently targeted a minority and spread enmity between two communities.

He also made a similar post on March 19 on X and YouTube which went viral. He has 1.3 million followers on X, thereby influencing the voters and disturbing the communal harmony between the communities, it further alleged.

Based on the complaint, an FIR was registered at Halasuru Gate police station on March 20 under sections 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), 295 A (Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the Indian Penal Code and the Representation of the People Act, the officials said.

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News Network
March 16,2024

Mangaluru: In the wake of complaints regarding middlemen menace, sleuths of Lokayukta on Friday, March 15, conducted a raid at the Mangaluru Urban Development Authority. 

The Lokayukta team found unaccounted money and several files, which were not disposed of for a long period.

Lokayukta SP CA Simon said that the Lokayukta has received complaints that middlemen have been interfering in the MUDA office, and files pertaining to the public are not being cleared on time.

A raid that commenced in the evening on March 13, lasted for 18 hours. During the raid, Lokayukta officials found cash in a bag in MUDA office, and also with officials and others. MUDA officials could not inform the source of money found in their office, the SP said.

Further, he said that many people gathered at the MUDA office during the Lokayukta raid, and have raised complaints about the harassment at the urban development authority. “We have gathered evidence for MUDA officials carrying out file disposal processes through brokers on phone calls. The investigation on the MUDA network will be continued,” he said.

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