Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday alleged that Congress leader P Chidambaram had violated his bail conditions by claiming he had a clean record during his tenure as Union finance minister, PTI reported. He was referring to the comments Chidambaram made in a press conference in New Delhi.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court had granted the Congress leader bail in connection with the Enforcement Directorate’s charges in the INX Media case. But one of the court’s conditions was that Chidambaram refrain from making statements or giving interviews to the media regarding the case.
“P Chidambaram ji has violated his bail conditions on the very first day,” ANI quoted Javadekar as saying. “The court had asked him to not give any public statement on the case as a condition for bail but Chidambaram ji today said that his record as a minster was very clear.”
In the press conference, the former finance minister criticised the state of the economy, and said the Narendra Modi government was clueless about the measures needed to improve it. Chidambaram said the Reserve Bank of India’s drastic change in GDP forecasts showed that the Centre had poorly managed the country’s economy, and pointed out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been “unusually silent” on the slowdown. He also raised concerns about the the detention of political leaders in Jammu and Kashmir.
Earlier in the day, the Congress leader visited Parliament and protested against rising onion prices.
On Wednesday, after walking out of Tihar Jail, he had pointed out that not a single charge had bee been framed against him in the 106 days since he had been arrested in corruption charges.
The INX Media case
The Enforcement Directorate filed a money laundering case in May 2017 against P Chidambaram’s son Karti Chidambaram, INX Media, and the company’s owners Indrani and Peter Mukerjea.
The CBI, which is also looking into the case, has said there were irregularities in the foreign direct investment clearance granted to the media company by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board in 2007. Chidambaram was the finance minister at the time. The agency has submitted purported emails between INX Media and a company belonging to Karti Chidambaram, claiming that these emails will “prove offences committed”.
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