INX Media case: Court sends Karti Chidambaram’s chartered accountant to 3 more days in ED custody
Bhaskararaman was arrested on February 16 and was sent to custody for interrogation.
A Delhi court on Friday sent the chartered accountant of former Union minister P Chidambaram’s son Karti Chidambaram (pictured above) to three more days in custody of the Enforcement Directorate, PTI reported. The court had sent him to five days’ custody for interrogation on February 16, and had later extended it for two more days.
The chartered accountant, Bhaskararaman, was arrested on February 16 from a five-star hotel in Delhi in connection with the INX Media money-laundering case. The Enforcement Directorate said it had found that Bhaskararaman had been “assisting Karti Chidambaram to manage his huge ill-gotten wealth in India and abroad”.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear Karti Chidambaram’s plea seeking anticipatory bail in the case on March 6. His lawyer Kapil Sibal had asked for more time to file a proper application to challenge the Enforcement Directorate proceedings.
However, the top court refused to stay the summons that the Enforcement Directorate had issued, asking him to appear before it on March 1.
In May 2017, the ED had filed a money laundering case against Karti Chidambaram, INX Media and its directors, which includes Indrani and Peter Mukerjea. Chidambaram’s company had allegedly received Rs 10 lakh from the company – which got clearance from the Foreign Exchange Promotion Board for Rs 4 crore, but had actually received Rs 305 crore in foreign funding in 2007. P Chidambaram was the finance minister in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at that time.
The money was reportedly paid to Karti Chidambaram in return for help getting out of the situation without facing any punitive action, the Enforcement Directorate told the court.