Delhi High Court Justice Indermeet Kaur on Tuesday recused herself from hearing the bail plea of Karti Chidambaram, who was arrested in the INX Media corruption case. However, Justice Kaur did not give any reason for her recusal.

Kaur said she would ask the acting chief justice to assign the bail plea to another bench on Tuesday. The bail plea was mentioned before a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar on Monday, and was listed for March 15.

Supreme Court to hear ED’s plea on March 15

The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear the Enforcement Directorate’s plea challenging the Delhi High Court order granting interim protection to Karti Chidambaram on an urgent basis. The bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud listed the matter for March 15, reported PTI.

On March 9, the High Court had ordered the investigating agency to not arrest him till March 20 when it will take up the matter again. In his plea before the High Court, Karti Chidambaram had claimed that the agency did not have the jurisdiction to issue notices based on a First Information Report that the Central Bureau of Investigation had filed.

In May 2017, the Enforcement Directorate had filed a money laundering case against Karti Chidambaram, INX Media and its directors Indrani Mukerjea and Peter Mukerjea. The two are currently in jail for the murder of Sheena Bora, Indrani Mukerjea’s daughter. Chidambaram’s company allegedly received Rs 10 lakh from INX Media – which had received clearance from the Foreign Exchange Promotion Board for Rs 4 crore in foreign funding, when in fact it had got Rs 305 crore in 2007. P Chidambaram was the finance minister in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at that time.

The money was paid to Karti Chidambaram in return for help to get away without facing any punitive action, the Enforcement Directorate had told the court. Karti Chidambaram has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the INX Media case.