Aishwarya, the daughter of Karnataka Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar, appeared before the Enforcement Directorate in Delhi on Thursday in connection with its money-laundering probe against him, officials said.
They said the 22-year-old management graduate will be questioned and her statement will be recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). She is also expected to be confronted with documents and statements made by Shivakumar with regard to a trip to Singapore he made with his daughter in 2017, the officials said. Aishwarya is a trustee in an education trust floated by her father.
The trust, holding assets and businesses worth crores of rupees, operates a number of colleges offering courses in engineering and other streams and Aishwarya is the main person behind them, officials said.The Congress leader and former Karnataka cabinet minister was arrested by the ED on September 3 and is in the agency’s custody.
The Central agency in September last year registered a money-laundering case against Shivakumar, Haumanthaiah, an employee at the Karnataka Bhavan in New Delhi, and others. The criminal case was filed based on an Income Tax Department charge-sheet filed against Shivakumar and others before a court in Bengaluru for alleged tax evasion and hawala dealings.
