Former finance minister P. Chidambaram’s son, Karti Chidambaram, was arrested on Wednesday by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) at Chennai airport. As per reports, he was arrested by CBI in connection with its probe in the INX media case. Now he has been taken to a Delhi court.
The court has given permission to his advocates to interact with him for 10 minutes inside the courtroom.
CBI team nabbed 46-year-old Karti on his return from London. He was later put on a Delhi-bound flight and brought to the agency headquarters. Then CBI team completed the required formalities including a medical test ahead of producing him at the designated CBI court in Delhi in the evening.
However, the agency have not produced him at a local magistrate in Chennai for his transit remand since the probe agency has an all-India jurisdiction.
Last year on May 15, the CBI had registered an FIR against alleged irregularities in the FIPB clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds, a whopping amount of Rs 305 crore in 2007 when Chidambaram was the Union finance minister.
CBI claims that Karti had allegedly received funds to the tune of Rs10 lakh in the case and he also received money from INX media to scuttle a tax probe. At that time the firm was owned by Peter and Indrani Mukerjea, who are presently in jail on charges of murdering Indrani’s daughter Sheena Bora.
A money laundering case has also been registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). A series of raids has been carried out by both CBI and the ED on the houses and offices that are owned by the Chidambarams.
For several times ED had questioned Karti Chidambaram and a lookout notice was also issued against him. The notice issued prevents a passenger from travelling abroad, as the agency suspected that he would try to close foreign accounts where he had parked the money from the kickbacks.
Back in November, the Supreme Court gave permission to Karti Chidambaram to go to the UK for his daughter’s admission in the Cambridge University. His father, P Chidambaram, was not available for comments, however, he had previously denied involvement of his son in any case.
Meanwhile, the Congress labelled his arrest as “vendetta” and “diversionary tactic” by the Modi government. This action has been taken by Modi government to hide its scams and “mal-governance”. The party’s communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala said that Karti Chidambaram’s arrest would not deter the party from speaking the truth to hold the government accountable.
Currently, an investigation is carried out by the CBI into alleged irregularities in grant of the FIPB clearance to the Aircel-Maxis deal in 2006. INX Media clearly mentioned in its records that as much as Rs10 lakh was given to Advantage Strategic Consulting (P) Limited, a firm “indirectly” owned by Karti, for management consultancy charged towards FIPB notification and clarification, claims CBI.
The FIR also allegedly claims that invoices of approximately Rs3.5 crore were raised in favour of INX group in the name of other companies in which Karti had substantial interests “directly or indirectly”.
The agency has registered an FIR against Karti, his company Chess Management Services, the Mukerjeas, INX Media, Advantage Strategic Consulting Services and its director Padma Vishwanathan.
The allegations levelled by the CBI are based on the information given by “source”, the FIR has claimed.