A day after the CBI and the ED informed the Supreme Court that the agency was probing the FIPB clearance to the Aircel-Maxis deal during the former Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s tenure, the latter on Tuesday said he had granted the approval to the deal ‘in the normal course of business’ and signed the papers as verified by the Senior Government Officials.
In a statement, Chidamb-aram said FIPB consists of five Secretaries and they examine the cases and recommend approval or rejection. They “apply the rules/guidelines” and submit each case to the CCEA or the Finance Minister depending upon the value of the investment, he added.
“CBI has recorded the statements from every official who dealt with the case. Everyone, including the then Secretary and Additional Secretary, has affirmed that the case was rightly submitted to the Finance Minister who was the competent authority to grant approval and that the approval was granted in the normal course of business,” Chidambaram added.
The former Finance Minister also came up with new terms like ‘face value’ of FDI. “In the Aircel-Maxis case, taking into account the face value of the foreign investment, the FIPB (Foreign Investment Promotion Board) submitted the case to the Finance Minister and sought approval. As Finance Minister, I granted approval in the normal course of business,” he said in the statement.
As per Foreign Direct Investment norms, there is only the actual value of investment. But when the matter of Chidambaram not sending the Maxis proposal to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) surfaced, the usage of ‘face value’ of investment came up.
As Finance Minister, Chidambaram was mandated to send the FIPB proposals above Rs600 crore to CCEA.
But he did not send the proposal and cleared the Maxis investment which was above Rs3,600 crore. Comptroller and auditor general (CAG) in 2012 found that the actual money came from Maxis was more than Rs4,700 crore.
The Supreme Court has asked CBI to submit detailed report on May 2.
The petitioner Subramanian Swamy had accused the CBI for not acting on matter for the last five years. Meanwhile, Enforcement Directorate has submitted report to the Court, detailing the violations committed by Chidambaram and money trail to son Karti’s companies from Maxis.