Karti Chidambaram, son of former Finance Minister P Chidambaram is alleged with a criminal case of cheating and corruption against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Karti is charged with the allegations of receiving a payoff for facilitating foreign investment clearance for INX Media (now know as 9X media) in 2008, criminal conspiracy, cheating and corruption. M/s INX Media (P) Ltd., represented by its then directors Indrani Mukherjea and Pritam Mukherjea alias Peter Mukherjea; Chess Management Services (represented through its director Mr. Karti Chidambaram); Advantage Strategic Consultancy (P) Ltd., represented through its director Padma Vishwanathan and unknown Finance Ministry officials are also accused of being involved in the conspiracy.
He had summoned a petition to the High Court for putting down a “look out circular” issued against him under the Passport Act over a corruption case filed by the CBI. Responding to which the court said on Friday that a lookout notice issued by the CBI against Karti Chidambaram, effectively preventing him from traveling abroad, would stay for now and his plea to lift it will be heard after August 23. He was ordered to appear for questioning before the CBI on 23 Aug.
The CBI on Wednesday interrogated Karti P Chidambaram for eight hours. He, as per directions of the Supreme Court, came to CBI headquarters at around 10:45 am and was questioned till 6:45 pm. The CBI has again asked him to appear for interrogation on 28 Aug. The agency has also asked directors of ASCPL – Ravi Vishwanathan, Mohanan Rajesh and S Bhaskararaman, a chartered account who allegedly handled all the business activities of Karti, to join the investigation on August 28 in Delhi while another associate Chinna Bala Nageswar Reddy has been called at Chennai office.
Sources say that Karti Chidambaram was asked over 100 questions during the interrogation session – mostly pertaining to money allegedly received by him in several crores for his services. Karti who came out of the CBI office at 7 p.m., said his petitions in the court spoke for themselves. Also referring to his plea to quash the look out circular issued against him, the court said it would review, the plea on September 1.