This Article is From Mar 05, 2018

Karti Chidambaram, In CBI Custody, Challenges Fresh Summons In Supreme Court

A BJP leader has already given notice in the Rajya Sabha to suspend business to discuss allegations against relatives of former ministers, an oblique reference to Karti Chidambaram's case.

Karti Chidambaram, In CBI Custody, Challenges Fresh Summons In Supreme Court

Karti Chidambaram has asked the Supreme Court to cancel summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate

Highlights

  • Karti Chidambaram was arrested last week by the CBI on corruption charges
  • He has now sought cancellation of summons by Enforcement Directorate
  • Congress has called the arrest a "political vendetta"
NEW DELHI: Karti Chidambaram arrested by the CBI last week on corruption charges moved the Supreme Court today to seek cancellation of summons by another central probe agency, the Enforcement Directorate. His request will be taken up by the Supreme Court tomorrow.

The former Finance Minister P Chidambaram's son is being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation, or CBI, for allegedly asking a bribe to use his father's influence to regularise investments made by a television company, INX media group a decade earlier.  Indrani and husband Peter Mukerjea, both of them in jail for the murder of Indrani's daughter Sheena Bora, had founded the company.

The Enforcement Directorate is looking into allegations that he had laundered the bribes received by companies linked to the 46-year-old businessman.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said on Monday that it would hear the plea after it was mentioned for an early hearing by lawyer Shally Bhasin.

Mr Chidambaram and his party Congress have called the arrest "political vendetta" and an attempt to divert attention from the mega fraud that celebrity diamond jeweller Nirav Modi and his family had allegedly pulled off.

Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, however, has insisted that it was just a case of the law taking its course.

But the arrest is coming handy for the BJP to mount a counter-offensive on the Congress.

The ruling party's vice president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe has already given notice in the Rajya Sabha to suspend business to discuss allegations against relatives of former ministers, an oblique reference to Karti Chidambaram's case.

The CBI says it had arrested Karti Chidambaram after Indrani Mukerjea's testimony before a magistrate where the INX Media co-founder had sought to link Karti Chidambaram and his father payments made to private firms, allegedly at the son's behest.

It was in this context that the CBI had yesterday taken Karti Chidambaram to Mumbai's Byculla jail where he was brought face-to-face with Indrani Mukerjea, a video camera recording the confrontation. It is not clear yet what transpired in the joint interrogation that continued for nearly four hours.

But at the Mumbai airport, a defiant Karti Chidambaram told reporters that the allegations against him were "false".

"There is nothing that supports them... (allegations) are all politically motivated," he said.
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