Former finance minister P Chidambaram, who was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the INX Media case, will continue to remain in the custody of the federal investigating agency till Monday, September 2, a Delhi court ordered on Friday. The judge, who initially remarked that the CBI’s request for more time to question Chidambaram appeared to be “vague”, later noted that the CBI required more time to question the Congress leader and confront him with other accused in the case.
The CBI had asked for Chidambaram’s custody for five days, till Wednesday.
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Chidambaram, who has challenged his custodial interrogation in the CBI case in the Supreme Court, had told the top court yesterday that he was willing to stay put in the agency’s custody till Monday. His legal team stood by this offer in the CBI court too.
But the CBI insisted on custody for five days on merits of its case.
Chidambaram told the judge that his lawyers and the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had mutually agreed to the remand being extended till Monday. “If they seek to extend remand by 5 days on merit, my instruction was to oppose it,” he said.
In his order extending Chidambaram’s custody, CBI special judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar noted: “Investigation being the prerogative of the investigating officer and given the fact that the record is voluminous and accused needs to be confronted. Thus, more time is required. In view of the submissions made, the accused is sent to police custody remand till September 2”.
The judge had earlier asked the CBI to justify its request for five days.
“You were aware about the volume of documents, why did you ask for only five days custody for the first time, Second time also you asked for five days only. Why this approach.”
Responding to the queries, additional solicitor general KM Nataraj told the court that the number of days required to question Chidambaram was dependent on his answers during interrogation. “You can see how many questions were put to him... We questioned him for 8-10 hours every day”, Natraj replied.
Chidambaram’s lawyer Dayan Krishnan said the former minister had been questioned for nearly 55 hours since his arrest on August 21 but had serious issues with the “nature of the investigation”.
“They have not put any document relating to shell companies and other relevant things before him so far,” he told the court. Krishnan also said Chidambaram was shown three files for 20 times and no document on money trail was put forth before him during the questioning.