Ex-FM Chidambaram arrested
His bail plea pending in SC, former minister pays surprise visit to Cong office before arrest
NEW DELHI: A CBI team arrested senior Congress leader and former union minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday night, hours after he failed to receive interim protection against arrest from the Supreme Court, which declined an urgent hearing on his anticipatory bail plea in cases of suspected corruption and money laundering in foreign investment received by INX Media Pvt. Ltd when he was finance minister 12 years ago.
Chidambaram made a dramatic appearance at the All India Congress Committee headquarters in New Delhi late on Wednesday, after remaining incommunicado since Tuesday evening, saying he hoped that investigative agencies would respect the law and wait for the top court to deliver a verdict on Friday on his anticipatory bail plea.
“I am aghast that I was accused of hiding from the law,” the 73-year-old Rajya Sabha member told journalists, responding to allegations to the effect by ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders.
“If I am asked to choose between life and liberty, I will unhesitatingly choose liberty,” he said. “Until Friday and beyond, let’s hope the lamp of liberty will shine bright and illuminate the whole country.”
Teams from both the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which are investigating the cases, periodically visited the Jor Bagh residence of Chidambaram on Wednesday. The agencies had also visited the residence on Tuesday evening to arrest him.
In the evening of an often nerve-wracking day marked by procedural snags and which saw Chidambram’s legal team, led by Kapil Sibal, go back and forth between the courtrooms and the registrar’s office, the court registry informed them that Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi had slotted the matter for a hearing on Friday, August 23.
Chidambaram’s team failed twice to get the apex court to hear his plea for a stay on the Delhi high court decision on Tuesday dismissing his plea for anticipatory bail, opening the doors to the arrest of the 73-yearold Rajya Saha member by investigating agencies probing the
case.
The Congress party, meanwhile, closed ranks behind Chidambaram, for whom the CBI and ED issued lookout notices at airports and immigration desks to prevent him from leaving the country, officials said.
“Modi’s Government is using the ED, CBI and sections of a spineless media to character assassinate Mr Chidambaram. I strongly condemn this disgraceful misuse of power,” Congress leader Rahul Gandhi wrote on Twitter His sister and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said Chidambaram was being “shamefully hunted down”.
After filing his petition at 10 am, Chidambaram’s legal team mentioned the matter at 10.30 am before a bench comprising justices N V Ramana, M Shantanagoudar and Ajay Rastogi, which sent it to be placed before CJI Gogoi to decide whether it should get an urgent hearing.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta opposed Chidambaram’s plea and said it was a case of “monumental magnitude”.
Taking a chance, the lawyers at 10.45 am rushed from the court of Justice Ramana to that of the CJI to catch his eye and air their grievances over the non-listing of their petition for an urgent hearing. Justice Gogoi, along with four other judges, is hearing the contentious Ayodhya title suit and according to the rules, a case for urgent hearing cannot be mentioned before a five- judge bench.
After waiting for a while and not getting the attention of the CJI, the lawyers decided to try their luck at 2 pm after the lunch break. Meanwhile, around noon, the CBI and ED filed caveats in the case, which means that no orders must be passed by the court without hearing them first.
In the meantime, Chidambaram’s legal team was informed by a registrar that their petition had not been allotted a case number and therefore could not be placed before the CJI for an urgent listing. Sibal once again went before the bench of Justice Ramana at 2pm, telling the judges that the legal team had not been left with no option but to approach the court again. He impressed on the bench that “court has in past protected people on oral mentioning and his client is not running away and there is a lookout notice against him”.
Sibal also told the court that “we will give an undertaking that he {Chidambaram} will not go anywhere”. The bench said purported defects in the petition had been removed “just now” and “it cannot be listed for hearing today itself.”
“Without listing of the petition, we cannot hear the matter,” said the bench, which told the lawyer when he repeatedly pressed for a hearing of the matter on Wednesday itself: “Sorry, Mr. Sibal. We cannot hear the matter.”
On being informed that the appeal had finally been allotted a case number, the registrar went back to the CJI’s chamber only to return within minutes with a message that the request for urgent listing could not be processed since their had been no clearance from the cavetors, CBI and ED. He said that a final call on the matter could only be taken at 4 pm as the CJI-led bench had resumed hearings in the Ayodhya case.
Again at 4 pm, Kapil Sibal went back to court 1 to catch the attention of the CJI. This attempt too proved unsuccessful as the court rose for the day without saying anything. Left with no option, the lawyers once again went to the registrar, who on instructions from the CJI informed them that the case had been ordered to be listed on Friday.
The INX Media case relates to alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance given to the media group for receiving foreign investment to the tune of Rs.305 crore in 2007, when Chidambaram was finance minister. The CBI registered a first information report on May 15, 2017 alleging irregularities in the manner the clearance had been awarded and the ED filed a money laundering case a year later
INX Media co-founders Peter Mukerjea and his wife Indrani Mukerjea have been charged with entering into a criminal conspiracy with Karti Chidambaram, P. Chidambaram’s son, to get foreign investment approvals and evade punitive measures for not having the necessary approvals from FIPB.
In March 2018, Indrani Mukerjea told CBI in a statement that a deal of $1 million was struck between Karti Chidambaram and the Mukerjeas to secure approval from the FIPB in favour of INX Media. Last month, a Delhi court allowed Indrani Mukerjea, who is a prime suspect in the murder of her daughter Sheena Bora, to turn approver in the INX Media case.
Chidambaram suffered a major setback on Tuesday when the Delhi high court denied him anticipatory bail in a ruling that used unusually strong language for such a matter.
“Both sides have cited legal precedents but the facts of the cse prima facie reveal that petitioner is the kingpin, i.e., the key conspirator in the case,” judge Sunil Gaur said.
P. Chidambaram has termed has called the allegations against him and his son political vendetta by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance.
Judge Gaur said: “Pre-arrest bail is not meant for high-profile economic offenders. Time has come to recommend to the Parliament to suitably amend the law to restrict the provisions of pre-arrest bail and make it inapplicable to economic offenders of high-profile cases like the instant one. It is the need of the hour. The law must come down
Chidambaram had approached the Supreme Court seeking protection from arrest hours after his anticipatory bail plea was rejected by the Delhi high court. Chidambaram’s lawyers were told to approach the top court on Wednesday.
On Tuesday night, the CBI had issued a notice to Chidambaram asking him to appear before the investigation officer “within two hours”. A team of CBI officers visited his Jor Bagh residence but left after confirming that the former minister was not on the premises.
The CBI notice had asked Chidambaram to appear before R Parthasarthy, CBI deputy superintendent of police, who is investigating the case, to record his statement under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.