ED questions PC again over Aircel- Maxis

Ex- finance minister statement recorded

Trouble continued to mount for the former finance minister and senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram on Friday with the Enforcement Directorate ( ED) questioning him again in the Aircel- Maxis money laundering case.

According to sources, Mr Chidambaram’s statement was recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act ( PMLA) after he appeared before the investigating officer ( IO) of the case at the ED office here on Friday. The former finance minister was questioned for nearly six hours.

Trouble continued to mount for the former finance minister and senior Congress leader, P. Chidambaram, with the Enforcement Directorate ( ED) on Friday questioning him again in the Aircel- Maxis money laundering case.

According to sources, Mr Chidambaram’s statement was recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act ( PMLA) after he appeared before the investigating officer of the case at the Enforcement Directorate’s office here on Friday. The former finance minister was questioned for nearly six hours. ED officials were tight- lipped about the questioning of Mr Chidambaram. While the Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI) has filed a charge sheet in this case involving the politician in July, the ED is expected to file its own prosecution complaint within the next fortnight. The agency had earlier recorded statements

of officials who were in the the nowdefunct FIPB when this deal took place, and it is understood that Mr Chidambaram would have been confronted with these versions. Some specific queries on the circumstances and procedures adopted by the FIPB, while giving approval to the Aircel- Maxis deal during his tenure, were put to him earlier. His son Karti has already been questioned

by the ED in this case twice.

Chidambaram, after a similar questioning by the ED in this case in June, had said that what he told the agency was already recorded in government documents. He also said that there is no FIR, yet a probe had been initiated. “More than half the time taken up by typing the answers without errors, reading the statement and signing it!,” he had said in his tweet.