Coming down heavily on Karti Chidambaram, who is accused in money laundering case, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi gave a stern warning to former Union Minister P. Chidambaram’s son to not “play around with the law”. He further said that if Karti does not cooperate, the Supreme Court will come down heavily on him.
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The Supreme Court also directed Karti Chidambaram to appear before the Enforcement Directorate for interrogation with respect to his role in the Aircel-Maxis deal and INX Media case in March. Karti was also asked to deposit Rs 10 crore with the court if he wishes to travel abroad. Karti has reportedly sought permission to travel abroad from February 21 to 28.
The CBI is probing alleged irregularities in grant of FIPB approval in Aircel-Maxis deal, while the ED is probing alleged money-laundering related to the deal. It is accused that Chidambaram misused his capacity as finance minister in the UPA government to illegally grant FIPB approvals to Malaysia based firm Maxis for buying Indian telecom company Aircel for ₹3,500 crore in 2006 and in exchange his son, Karti Chidambaram was given kickbacks. The CBI had obtained permission to prosecute Chidambaram in November 2018.
The father-son duo is not only getting cornered in Aircel-Maxis scam, but also in the similar scandal of INX media case. Both P Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram are accused in the INX Media scam which involves charges of bribery and lobbying in granting foreign investments worth Rs 300 crores to INX Media (Now, known as NewsX), which was owned by Peter and Indrani Mukherjee of the sensational Sheena Bora murder case. He was grilled by ED in the case, earlier this month.