Karti Chidambaram’s assertions contrary to claims made by CBI

The investigation agency said it would soon submit its report in court

Who is telling the truth, is the question doing the rounds. Former finance minister P Chidambaram’s businessman son Karti says that he has just one bank account and an asset abroad and the CBI which filed a sealed envelope before the Supreme Court on Wednesday claims he has multiple foreign bank accounts and also many foreign assets.

Karti had moved the Apex Court to remove the lookout circular issued against him by the CBI in the INX Media Limited case to let him go abroad.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal challenged reliability of the CBI documents and on the Court fixing further hearing on November 1 submitted that he has instructions from Karti to put on hold his application for permission to go abroad till the issue is decided. The Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said it would decide on November 1 whether the CBI documents could be relied upon in deciding the validity of the lookout circular as also whether these could be given to alleged accused Karti Chidambaram.

The investigation agency

told the Court that it was submitting the documents for the judges’ eyes only to refute Karti’s claim on Monday that he has just one asset and one bank account abroad.

Sibal argued that the documents, if part of the case diary, cannot be relied upon as evidence under Section 172(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), citing an Apex Court ruling that

the case diary cannot be submitted by the investigating officer to the court for adjudication of an issue as the court alone can call for it.

He said the CrPC is quite unambiguous that “any criminal court may send for the police diaries of a case under inquiry or trial in such court, and may use such diaries, not as evidence in the case, but to aid it in such inquiry or trial.”