INX Media case: SC asks ED to respond to PC’S bail plea
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to respond to a petition filed by former Union minister P Chidambaram seeking bail in the INX Media case.
A bench of justices P Bhanumati, AS Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy also said the court shall take up the matter again on November 26 and in the meantime the ED shall file its affidavit in the case.
Chidambaram has approached the Supreme Court challenging a November 15 judgment by the Delhi high court denying him bail.
The 74-year-old Rajya Sabha member was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from his house on August 21 in the INX Media case for alleged corruption. After that, he was arrested by the ED on October 16 in a related money laundering case.
He received bail in the CBI case from the Supreme Court on October 22.
CBI registered the case on
May 15, 2017, alleging irregularities in a Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance granted to INX Media for receiving overseas funds in 2007, during Chidambaram’s tenure as finance minister in the UPA govenrment.the ED subsequently lodged the money laundering case.
The November 15 order of the Delhi high court denying Chidambaram bail ran into a controversy after some media reports alleged a “cut and paste job” in the ruling by justice Suresh Kumar Kait who had mixed facts of two unrelated cases.
In his petition before the apex court, Chidambaram assailed the mixing-up of facts in the Rohit Tandon case with those in his own and refusing him (Chidambaram) bail . Tandon, a lawyer, has been arrested in separate cases and is out on bail.
Chidambaram’s petition asserts, “The patent non-application of mind in the Impugned Order is a distinct and separate ground for reversal of the impugned order and grant of bail. This is reflected in the clear insertion of facts relating to a distinct and different case of one Shri Rohit Tandon into the factual context of the case of the Petitioner i.e., mixing up the facts of the case titled Rohit Tandon v.
Directorate of Enforcement, reported in (2018) 11 SCC 46 as if they were the facts of the Petitioner’s case.”
Taking suo motu (a Latin term meaning on its own motion) cognizance of the media reports , justice Kait on November 18 clarified that facts of the Rohit Tandon case were mentioned in its order denying bail to Chidambaram only as a reference, and that there was no “cut and paste job”.