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Have proof Chidambaram laundered money: ED to SC on INX media case
Mehta was seeking to rebut a claim by Chidambaram’s legal team that the former finance minister had been charged under provisions of the money laundering law that took effect in June 2009 after amendments to the legislation, long after the alleged crime took place in 2007.
Solicitor general of India Tushar Mehta claimed on Wednesday that senior Congress politician P. Chidambaram was engaged in laundering money he allegedly received in return for a favour to INX Media even as late as in 2017, when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) first registered a case against him.
Mehta was seeking to rebut a claim by Chidambaram’s legal team that the former finance minister had been charged under provisions of the money laundering law that took effect in June 2009 after amendments to the legislation, long after the alleged crime took place in 2007.
Mehta underscored that the charge against Chidambaram wasn’t that he had laundered money a decade earlier. “Laundering has been going on (since 2007-08) and even on the date of registration of enforcement complaint information report (ECIR) in (May 2017) money laundering was going on,” he told a bench comprising justices R Banumathi and AS Bopanna.
The solicitor general said a report on the agency’s probe-in-progress in the case could not be shared with Chidambaram, and asked the court to refer to details of the ED investigation against the former minister submitted to the court in a sealed envelope on Tuesday. Chidambaram’s lawyers have objected to the ED placing documents in the court randomly and “behind the back” to seek his custody.
The case of money laundering is linked to the government’s approval of foreign investment to the tune of Rs.305 crore in broadcaster INX Media Private Limited in 2007, when Chidambaram was finance minister in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
ED has accused Chidambaram and his aides of creating “layers of money laundering web in a manner which is sufficient to make it difficult for law enforcement agencies to track the money trail of proceeds of crime.”
Mehta stressed that money laundering, unlike many other offences, was never committed in the heat of the moment and was carried out by very intelligent people. “A stupid person can’t launder… (since it) requires layers and layers of concealment,” he said.
Countering Chidambaram’s lawyer Abhishek Singhvi’s argument that the former minister’s arrest was only for “humiliation, humiliation, humiliation”, the solicitor general said it’s only for “prevention, prevention, prevention”.
The Supreme Court is hearing a case filed by the 73-year-old Chidambaram, a member of the Rajya Sabha, challenging the rejection of his anticipatory bail by the Delhi high court last week. He has also filed two more applications against the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) being granted custody of him after his arrest in the same case. The court has stayed his arrest by the ED till it hears his case.
The former finance minister on Tuesday filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court, denying ED allegations that he had bank accounts or properties abroad, purchased with allegedly laundered money.
INX Media co-founders Peter Mukerjea and his wife Indrani Mukerjea have ben charged with entering into a criminal conspiracy with Karti Chidambaram, the former minister’s son, to secure clearance from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) for the foreign investment received by the company and evade punitive measures for not having the requisite approvals.
In March 2018, Indrani Mukerjea told the Central Bureau of Investigation in a statement that a deal of $1 million was struck between Karti Chidambaram and the Mukerjeas to secure approval from the FIPB in favour of INX Media. Last month, a Delhi court allowed Indrani Mukerjea, who is a prime suspect in the murder of her daughter Sheena Bora, to turn approver in the INX Media case.
The court will next hear the case on Thursday.
