Delhi court sends Karnataka Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar to judicial custody

Special judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar directed the ED to take Shivakumar to the hospital first and to see whether doctor suggests admission.

September 17, 2019 06:00 pm | Updated 08:08 pm IST - New Delhi:

 Karnataka : Bengaluru : 30/08/2019 : Former minister and MLA D K Shivakumar addressing Media persons before  bording flight to New Delhi regarding  ED summons, at his office  on 30 August 2019.  Photo : V Sreenivasa Murthy/The Hindu.

Karnataka : Bengaluru : 30/08/2019 : Former minister and MLA D K Shivakumar addressing Media persons before bording flight to New Delhi regarding ED summons, at his office on 30 August 2019. Photo : V Sreenivasa Murthy/The Hindu.

A Delhi court on Tuesday sent Karnataka Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar to judicial custody. He was arrested in a money-laundering case by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

Special judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar sent Shivakumar to custody and directed the ED to take Shivakumar to the hospital first and to see whether doctor suggests admission.

The probe agency claimed in the court that its interrogation was yet to be completed and sought permission from the judge to interrogate Shivakumar during the judicial custody.

Transcripts sought

Shivakumar, arrested by the ED on September 3, sought the court’s direction to call for the transcript of his statements recorded by an Assistant Director of the ED under Section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

He also sought from the court to hold that the probe agency has no jurisdiction to invoke provisions of PMLA against him.

In his plea before the high court, he claimed that the statement under Section 50 of the PMLA could only be recorded by the Director of the ED and the statement recorded by any other officer in Shivakumar’s case be removed from the records.

He said that in no manner Shivakumar can be linked to money laundering as contemplated under the PMLA and alleged that the ED officers “for extraneous reasons, are trying to impute criminality into the same, so as to harass him“.

The proceedings initiated against Shivakumar are “laced with bias” at the behest of the ED officials, the plea alleged, adding that the investigation was conducted with “political bias“.

The trial court had earlier allowed ED to interrogate the politician in custody, saying the allegations made against him were serious in nature.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.