Bengaluru: Income Tax Authorities have filed yet another complaint  against Karnataka Minister for Medical Education and Water Resources D.K. Shivakumar.

Following the complaint, the Economic Offences Court Judge M.S. Alva has issued summons to Shivakumar and four others to appear before him on August 2 for questioning.

This is the fourth complaint filed by the IT Department against Shivakumar whose residence and office were raided during May 12 election to the Assembly. Sources said that the complaint was filed as there were alleged discrepancies in the annual returns filed by him. Others against whom summons were issued includes Sachin Narayan, Sunil Kumar Sharma, Anjaneya Hanumanthaiah and Rajendra.

The complaint said that Shivakumar, along with two businessmen and a present and a former employee of the Karnataka Government, had “engaged in transporting huge amount of unaccounted cash on regular basis through hawala channels.”

“As per the facts and analysis of the evidences, it is clear that accused number 1 (Shivakumar) has set up an extensive network of persons and premises across Delhi and Bengaluru in order to transport and utilise unaccounted cash. It is pertinent to note here that an unaccounted cash amount of approximately Rs.8.5 crore has been found and seized [during raids] from four premises in Delhi which are directly relatable to accused number 1,” the Department has alleged in the complaint.

The central agency accused the Minister of using services of Sunil Kumar Sharma, proprietor of Sharma Transport, Anjaneya Hanumanthaiah, Liaison Officer in Karnataka Bhavan, N. Rajendra, employee of Sharma Transport and Sachin Narayana, a business associate among others for transporting the cash.

According to the Department, the objective of purchasing these flats were two fold — one was to entertain the guests of Shivakumar and the other was to store unaccounted cash generated by him. Therefore, the cash generated by Shivakumar in Bengaluru and other places used to be transported by Sunil Kumar Sharma, stored in the flat and then distributed to various sources as directed by Shivakumar, according to their statement.

The entire conspiracy was hatched by Shivakumar, Sachin Narayan and Sharma at Bengaluru for the purposes of evading tax, stated the I-T Department.

Code words & hawala link

Sunil Kumar Sharma and one Pankaj used code word ‘KG’ for ‘lakh’, according to Rajendra. But Sharma stated that ‘KG’ does not mean rupees in ‘lakh’ and is only related to cargo deliveries. Ten rupee note was commonly used as a unique code between hawala operators and used in Sharma’s WhatsApp chat.