A last-ditch effort by Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, to pre-empt the move by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from questioning him in the INX Media pay-off case ended in fiasco as the Madras High Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition filed by the former to quash the FIR against him.
Karti had approached the Madras High Court with a plea to quash the FIR filed by the CBI against him in the bribery case involving the INX Media once owned by Indrani Mukherjee and her husband Peter Mukherjee.
Justice P Velmurugan in his verdict said that the Madras High Court has no jurisdiction over the case and asked the petitioner to approach the Delhi High Court. The judge said that the Delhi High Court alone had territorial jurisdiction in the case. The CBI argued that the Madras High Court has no jurisdiction to entertain the petition and this was accepted by the judge.
The Supreme Court had directed Karti to present himself before the CBI for questioning in connection with the case. He has to make himself available before the CBI team on August 23.
The FIR filed by the CBI is a fall out of the raids conducted by the sleuths of the agency in the houses and offices of Karti Chidambaram in Chennai, Sivaganga and other places across the nation in connection with the case related to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance given to INX Media in 2007 while papa Chidambaram was the finance minister of the country. It was also found that though the FIPB approval was only for an amount of Rs 4 crore, the company INX Media managed to get Rs 305 crore in violation of the rules thanks to the intervention of Karti Chidambaram.
The CBI raid had yielded documents related to pay offs made by INX Meda to Advantage Strategic Consultancy Services and Chess Management Board, firms owned by Karti.
Karti had tried all the tricks in his “armoury” to thwart the probe and scuttle the agency’s move to question him. He had approached the Madras High Court to get the look Out Circular issued against him quashed. Though the Madras High Court had suspended the lOC, the apex court quashed the High Court order and asked Karti to cooperate with the investigating agency.