P Chidambaram in CBI custody: What we know so far
The senior Congress leader has been in CBI’s custody for 12 days since he was arrested on August 21.
Former Union minister P Chidambaram will be produced before a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Monday as his extended custody with the probe agency in the INX Media case ends.
The senior Congress leader has been in CBI’s custody for 12 days since he was arrested on August 21. On Friday, a special CBI court ordered that Chidambaram will continue to remain in the custody of the federal investigating agency till Monday.
The Supreme Court is also hearing Chidambaram’s plea for protection from arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in the INX Media case. The top court is hearing a case filed by the 73-year-old member of the Rajya Sabha challenging the rejection of his anticipatory bail by the Delhi high court.
He has also filed two more applications against CBI being granted custody of him after his arrest in the same case. The court has stayed his arrest by the ED until it hears his case.
Here’s what we know about the case so far:
* The case of corruption is linked to the government’s approval of foreign investment in INX Media Private Limited in 2007, when Chidambaram was finance minister in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. CBI registered a first information report on May 15, 2017, alleging irregularities in the manner the clearance had been awarded. Later, ED filed a money-laundering case against him.
* The ED the CBI are probing how his son Karti Chidambaram got clearance from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) in 2007 for the INX Media group when his father was the finance minister. Karti Chidambaram was arrested last year by CBI for allegedly accepting money to facilitate the FIPB clearance to INX Media. He was later granted bail.
* 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.
* 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.”
* 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 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 former Union minister was arrested by CBI on August 21 after the Delhi High Court rejected Chidambaram’s request for an anticipatory bail in two cases being investigated by CBI and ED.
* The Delhi high court while cancelling his anticipatory bail plea said prima facie proof showed Chidambaram appeared to be the kingpin and key conspirator in the case. The “magnitude and enormity” of material produced by the investigating agencies “dis-entitles him from any pre-arrest bail”, the court said.
* Chidambaram had moved the Supreme Court immediately after the high court had dismissed his anticipatory bail plea in both CBI and ED cases on August 20 and his matter was listed for hearing on August 21 before the SC passed an order pushing the hearing to August 23.
* A CBI court had on August 26 extended Chidambaram’s custody in the INX media case to August 30 days after the CBI sought five more days to interrogate him.
* The former finance minister had on August 27 filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court, denying ED allegations that he had bank accounts or properties abroad, purchased with allegedly laundered money.
* The rejoinder was filed in response to the ED affidavit placed on record on August 26. ED stated it had found “17 benami foreign bank accounts” used for laundering money and 10 properties purchased with the money. Chidambaram and his co-conspirators “had accounts/valuable properties in Argentina, Austria, British Virgin Islands, France, Greece, Malaysia, Monaco, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Spain and Sri Lanka,” the affidavit said.
* Solicitor general of India Tushar Mehta claimed on August 28 that 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.
* Chidambaram’s legal team had argued that the ED had slipped up because it invoked a provision in the money laundering law that came into effect only in 2009 though the allegations against Chidambaram related to the INX Media case of 2008.
* The government’s second most senior law officer Mehta also told the Supreme Court that ED has received specific inputs from foreign countries about P Chidambaram’s assets abroad.
* On August 29, Chidambaram had told the top court that he was willing to stay put in the agency’s custody till September 2. His legal team stood by this offer in the CBI court too.
* The Centre’s senior law officer Tushar Mehta on August 29 told the Supreme Court that the Enforcement Directorate should not be ordered to share information with the Congress leader during the continuing arguments on Chidambaram’s pre-arrest bail request. Mehta’s argument was designed to counter the reasoning extended by Chidambaram’s team that the federal investigating agency should not be allowed to put any material before the court in a sealed cover that hadn’t been shared with the former minister first.
* The Supreme Court had reserved its order on Chidambaram’s pre-arrest bail petition in the INX Media money-laundering case until September 5, when it will deliver its verdict, extending the Congress leader’s interim protection from arrest by ED until then.
