The Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to reply to Karti Chidambaram’s bail plea in connection with the INX Media money laundering case, PTI reported. The court directed the agency to file a status report by March 16.
The court had listed his bail plea for hearing on March 15. However, earlier in the day, Delhi High Court Justice Indermeet Kaur recused herself from hearing his plea and said she would ask the acting chief justice to assign the bail plea to another bench on Tuesday itself.
The son of former Union minister P Chidambaram had moved the High Court seeking bail, hours after a court in Delhi on Monday sent him to judicial custody till March 24.
Meanwhile, a Delhi court granted bail to Karti Chidambaram’s chartered accountant, Bhaskararaman, who was arrested on February 16 in connection with the case. The Enforcement Directorate had said it had found that Bhaskararaman had been “assisting Karti Chidambaram to manage his huge ill-gotten wealth in India and abroad”.
Karti Chidambaram had been in the custody of the Central Bureau of Investigation since his arrest from Chennai airport on February 28. The Supreme Court had on March 9 provided interim protection to him from being arrested by the Enforcement Directorate. The court had asked the agency not to arrest him until March 20 when the matter will be heard again.
In May 2017, the Enforcement Directorate had filed a money laundering case against Karti Chidambaram, INX Media and its directors Indrani Mukerjea and Peter Mukerjea. The two are currently in jail for the murder of Sheena Bora, Indrani Mukerjea’s daughter. Chidambaram’s company allegedly received Rs 10 lakh from INX Media – which had received clearance from the Foreign Exchange Promotion Board for Rs 4 crore in foreign funding, when in fact it had got Rs 305 crore in 2007. P Chidambaram was the finance minister in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at that time.
The money was paid to Karti Chidambaram in return for help to get away without facing any punitive action, the Enforcement Directorate had told the court. Karti Chidambaram has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the INX Media case.
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