Karti Chidambaram son of former Finance Minister P Chidambaram faces more troubles as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) registers a money laundering case against him, INX Media, its directors, Peter and Indrani Mukerjea, and others.
Central probe agency registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) against them under the provision of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), equivalent to the ED’s FIR. ED had provided the information about the alleged illegal payments made by INX media, based on which the CBI had filed its FIR. After which CBI, on carried out searches and raids at the homes and offices of Karti across four cities for allegedly receiving money from the media firm owned by the Mukerjeas to settle tax probe amicably.
The CBI had filed an FIR against Karti and the Mukerjeas on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, receiving illegal gratification, influencing public servants and criminal misconduct, though the Chidambarams denies all the allegations.
The CBI had also recovered vouchers of Rs 10 lakh which were allegedly paid for the services given by Karti by using his influence to manipulate a tax probe against it in a case of violation of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) conditions to receive investment from Mauritius. These vouchers were issued in favour of Advantage Strategic Consulting (P) Limited, a firm “indirectly” owned by Karti.
P Chidambaram said that the government was using the CBI and other agencies to target him and his son, as every case of the foreign investment clearance was processed according to the law in conformation with the Foreign Investment Promotion Board.