INX Media Case: Delhi Court Exempts P Chidambaram, Karti Chidambaram From Personal Appearance

A Delhi Court on Wednesday fixed as April 16 the date for scrutiny of documents in the main chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the INX Media money laundering case against Former Union Minister P Chidambaram, his son Karti P. Chidambaram and 8 others.

Special CBI Judge MK Nagpal while putting up for scrutiny of documents, also exempted personal appearances of the accused persons in the case at the request of their counsels.

Both the Counsel appearing on behalf of P Chidambaram and Karti P Chidambaram sought exemption on similar grounds of being busy with the election schedule in the wake of Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections and requested the Court to let them appear via virtual mode.

"I am filing an exemption. The ground is that elections are going on in Tamil Nadu. Yesterday was a polling day." Advocate Arshdeep Singh, representing P Chidambaram, submitted before the Court.

Moreover, counsel appearing on behalf of co accused Peter Mukherjea also filed a bail application before the Court today. 

Considering the submissions made on behalf of all the counsels, the Court ordered thus:

"To put up on 16th April for reply/arguments in the bail application and scrutiny of documents. Let the advance copy of reply be supplied to the other party."

The Court had issued summons to Former Union Minister P Chidambaram, his son Karti P. Chidambaram and 8 others for appearance to all the accused persons after taking cognizance of the ED's main chargesheet in the case.

"I find sufficient material and grounds for proceeding further in the matter against all the ten accused persons named in the complaint, out of which six accused are companies, for commission of offence under Section 3 read with Section 70 of the PMLA, which is punishable under Section 4 of the said Act." The Judge ordered.

Brief Facts of the Case

CBI had registered an FIR dated 15th May 2017 against INX Media Pvt. Ltd., Karti Chidambaram and others for offences under sec. 120B read with sec. 420 of IPC along with sec. 8, 12(2) and 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Since the offences find mention in the Schedule appeneded to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, a case was also registered by the Directorate of Enforcement (DoE), Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue, Government of India on 18th May 2017 and an investigation was therefore taken up for a possible action under PMLA.

The said FIR was registered on the allegations that Indrani Muherjea and Pratim Mukherjea, Director and COO respectively of INX Media entered into a criminal conspiracy with Karti P Chidambaram and committed illegal acts in receiving excess Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) than the amount approved by Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB). Other allegation was that such unauthorized downstream investment by INX Media in INX News without the approval of FIPB, were got scuttled by Karti P. Chidambram by influencing the public servants of FIPB Unit, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Ministry of Finance (MoF)

It was therefore alleged that owing to the criminal conspiracy and influence of P Chidambaram and Karti Chidambaram, such officials abused their official positions and caused undue favours to INX Media due to which INX Media had paid huge amounts to some companies which Karti P Chidambaram had substantial interest in, either directly or indirectly. The investigation revealed that for regularization of excess FDI and downstream investment by INX Media, proceeds of crime were generated on few occasions from criminal activities of the said case and the same were received by Karti P. Chidambram through some shell companies associated with him.

Furthermore, it was revealed that a fake invoice dated 26th June 2008 of Rs. 11,23,600 was raised in the name of ASCPL, a company beneficially owned by Karti Chidambaram, for providing consultancy services to INX Media. The investigation further revealed that four more fake invoices in the names of four other companies for amounts, totalling to approximately US $ 700,000 (equivalent to Rs.3.2 corers), in the month of September, 2008 were also raised on INX Media.

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