The Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate may open more cases against Karti Chidambaram, the son of former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, The Indian Express quoted unidentified officials as saying on Friday.
Investigators are believed to have found more evidence that a firm Karti Chidambaram allegedly “indirectly controlled” payments received from a number of companies, soon after they applied to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board for permission for foreign investment.
On Thursday, the CBI got five-day custody of Karti Chidambaram for questioning. The agency arrested him on Wednesday in the INX Media case for allegedly violating the Foreign Exchange Management Act.
CBI and Enforcement Directorate officials suspect that Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Ltd, or ASCPL – which investigators believe has links with Karti Chidambaram – received payments from companies days or months after seeking permission to make foreign investment in an Indian firm. These firms received permission after ASCPL either got money from them for purportedly providing consultancy services or raised invoices to them, officials told The Indian Express.
These transactions took place when P Chidambaram was the finance minister. The Enforcement Directorate had come across the evidence while raiding locations linked with the Chidambarams in connection with the INX Media case, according to the report.
“There is a prima facie case and a pattern is visible that these companies got permission right after associating with ASCPL,” an investigator was quoted as saying. “More cases could be opened.”
Karti Chidambaram’s lawyer, Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, said they will give “a befitting reply” whenever any such allegation is made. “There doesn’t appear to be any substance in such allegations,” he told the newspaper. “Not a whisper has come about this earlier. There is no material to react to.”
CBI to question P Chidambaram
The former finance minister “will be summoned to the agency headquarters here [in Delhi] and questioned soon”, The New Indian Express quoted a senior CBI official supervising the investigation as saying. “Although he is not named as an accused, his role in the grant of irregular FIPB [Foreign Investment Promotion Board] clearance to INX Media is part of the FIR,” he said.
Indrani Mukerjea, a former owner of the media group, had alleged that P Chidambaram had asked her and her husband Peter Mukerjea to help his son’s business in exchange for foreign investment approval for INX Media. The Mukerjeas were directors of the company and are also accused in the bribery scam. The two are currently in jail in the Sheena Bora murder case.
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