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‘Don’t play around with the law’: Supreme Court tells Karti Chidambaram
The court also directed Karti to deposit ₹10 crore with Supreme Court registry as a surety.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday permitted former finance minister P Chidambaram’s son Karti Chidambaram to travel abroad. Karti is an accused in the Aircel-Maxis case.
At the same time, the court directed Karti to deposit ₹10 crore with Supreme Court registry as a surety.
Telling Karti to not “play around with the law”, the Supreme Court also directed him to appear before the Enforcement Directorate on March 5, 6, 7 and 12 for questioning in the INX Media and Aircel Maxis cases.
“You go wherever you want to go, between February 10 to 26 but you must cooperate with the investigation,” the Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said. “Please tell your clients that he will have to cooperate. You have not cooperated. We wanted to say a lot of things. We are not saying them right now,” the bench said.
Karti has also been directed to file an undertaking that he will return and cooperate with the investigation.
Karti has sought permission to travel abroad from February 10 to 26 and again from March 23 to 31.
On January 16, the Supreme Court refused to give an urgent hearing to Karti Chidambaram who was seeking permission to travel abroad.
“We are not interested. We have better things to do,” Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said during the hearing. “We will see what can be done,” he added.
Karti had asked for an urgent hearing for permission to travel abroad in November 2018 too. “Don’t go... Stay back in India,” Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had said then.
The CBI and Enforcement Directorate are investigating Karti Chidambaram in the Aircel-Maxis and INX media case relating to the clearance by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board to receive foreign funds to the tune of ₹305 crore when his father was the finance minister.
In July last year, the Supreme Court allowed him to travel to the United Kingdom, France and the United States of America for about a week.
When he returned to the Supreme Court for permission to travel abroad again in November, the court made it clear that this was not a matter which deserved an out-of-turn hearing.
