Congress trouble-shooter D.K. Shivakumar suffered a setback on Thursday as Karnataka High Court rejected a plea to quash a summons issued by the income tax department in a money laundering case.

A single-judge bench of Justice Aravind Kumar dismissed the petition. Shivakumar could now be summoned for questioning.

His business associates Sachin Narayana, Sunil Kumar Sharma, Anjaneya Hanumanthaiah and Rajendra were also parties to the petition.

The summons was originally issued in December 2018 after sleuths claimed to have recovered around Rs 8.4 crore in cash from four different locations linked to Shivakumar and his associates in Delhi during raid in August that year.

Dismissing his petition, the court observed that it is for the tax officials to decide whether to pursue the case or not.

Shivakumar rushed to meet his lawyers in the city. Sources said he could be filing an appeal on Friday.

The case was based on marathon raids on Shivakumar’s office and homes in Bangalore and Delhi in August 2018 when the party had tasked him with herding 44 MLAs from Gujarat ahead of the election that sent Congress leader Ahmed Patel to the Rajya Sabha.

Shivakumar sequestered all the MLAs at a holiday resort and ensured they were not poached.

Shivakumar was forced to rush home when the income tax department started the raids. But Patel eventually won the election from Gujarat.

On Thursday, Shivakumar said: “I respect the verdict, but I will explore legal options.”