Chidambaram sent to four-day CBI custody
Court says ex-minister’s custody ‘justified’; Oppn leaders hit out at Centre
NEWDELHI: Former finance minister P Chidambaram, who was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation from his Delhi residence late on Wednesday evening in connection with the INX Media case, has been sent to four-day remand custody.
A Delhi court on Thursday ordered CBI custody for the senior Congress leader at the request of the federal investigating agency that has accused the former minister of involvement in a decade-old kickbacks case.
Chidambaram, former Union home minister and finance minister, was arrested on Wednesday night after he failed to get protection from the Supreme Court, which did not list for an urgent hearing his appeal against the Delhi high court verdict dismissing his anticipatory bail plea.
The court heard the arguments of the CBI and his counsel for over one-and-a-half hours, during which the agency said there was a need to unearth a larger conspiracy and to go to the root of the case.
“Considering the facts and circumstances, I am of the view that custody is justified,” special judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar said, remanding Chidambaram to CBI custody till August 26.
The court also said that Chidambaram’s family members and his counsel would be at liberty to meet him at a time feasible to both sides.
Chidambaram was brought to the Rouse Avenue court complex around 3pm after a medical check-up. His son Karti and wife Nalini, a team of lawyers -including senior Congress leaders Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi – had arrived earlier.
Chidambaram, who had briefly spoken to his lawyers, later moved to the accused box as they waited for the judge, Anil Kumar Kuhad, to start proceedings.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, the government’s second most senior law officer, who pitched for CBI custody, told the court that the ex-minister’s responses to investigators were evasive and his custodial interrogation was crucial.
“Right to silence is a constitutional right and I have no issue, but he is non-cooperative, he was evasive to questioning,” Mehta said, describing the INX Media case as a “classic case of money laundering”.
“We are at the pre charge sheet stage and the material is with him... He remained non cooperative,” he said, according to news agency ANI.
Sibal and Singhvi rebutted this charge, pointing that noncooperation is not when a person doesn’t answer the way the CBI wanted him to. “It is when you call 10 times and I say no 5 times,” Singhvi said. He stressed that Chidambaram had only been called only once in 14 months. He has not been evasive and has answered your questions, he said.
Sibal, who asked the court to release Chidambaram on bail, argued that Karti Chidambaram, also an accused in this case, was released on bail in the
case and there was no reason to hold his father in custody.
The 73-year-old politician was arrested on Wednesday, about 90 minutes after he made a surprise appearance before television cameras at the Congress headquarters to rebut criticism that he was on the run.
The Congress leader headed straight home from the media conference from where he was arrested.
The Supreme Court on Friday will hear Chidambaram’s plea challenging the Delhi high court verdict dismissing his anticipatory bail in the INX Media case bench headed by Justice R Banumathi. Chidambaram had approached the top court against the high court’s August 20 verdict on Wednesday.
The CBI had registered an FIR on May 15, 2017, alleging irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance granted to the INX Media group for receiving overseas funds of ~305 crore in 2007 during Chidambaram’s tenure as finance minister.
Thereafter, the ED lodged a money laundering case in this regard in 2018.
The Congress leader’s arrest has triggered sharp attacks against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance. While the Congress accused the Centre of using the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate as personal “revenge-seeking departments”, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said Chidambaram’s arrest was “depressing” and alleged that the judiciary was not coming to the help of a “crying” democratic system.
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury also said that the law should take its own course, but the treatment meted out to the senior leader was “objectionable”.