The Enforcement Directorate has summoned former Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s son Karti in the Aircel-Maxis scam. The ED has asked Karti to appear at its Delhi office on Tuesday morning with all documents of his financial transaction with Aircel and Malaysian company Maxis. The ED has specifically sought Karti to produce payments of around $2 lakh received from Maxis during the scam period.
According to staffers of Karti’s company, he had sought more time from ED on Monday morning. The summon was issued to Karti by ED’s Investigating Officer Rajeshwar Singh last week. The ED’s finding of around $2 lakh pay off to Karti’s company, Chess Management Services Private limited, by three Maxis group companies during 2007 to 2010 is expected to create trouble for Chidambaram, who was in charge of the Finance Ministry when approvals were given to Maxis to take over Aircel.
During the raids at Karti’s companies, the investigators had found that Chess Management Services received more than $1 lakh from a Maxis group company Bumi Armada Berhad. Chess Management had also received more than $60,000 from Maxis Mobile Sdn Bhd and around $35,000 from Astro All Asia Network. These two companies are already chargesheeted by the CBI and the ED for routing kick-backs to former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran’s family company Sun TV. The ED has now established money trail to Chidambaram’s son’s companies during the scam period also. The 2G court had already dispatched letter Rogatory to london regarding Astro All Asia Network’s money trail with NDTV too.
The ED had sought Karti to bring bank details of his companies from 2005, including the controversial firm Advantage Strategic Consulting caught for financial transactions with Aircel during the scam period. The ED has already interrogated Karti’s partners Ravi Vishwanathan, C Bhaskararaman, CBN Reddy and Mohanan Rajesh.
The CBI and the ED have in their charge-sheets detailed the illegalities in the FIPB approval given by Chidambaram in 2006 to Maxis to take over the mobile phone operator Aircel. Both agencies have already informed the 2G Court on filing supplementary charge-sheet in Aircel-Maxis scam regarding the illegalities and violations committed by Chidambaram. The CBI had interrogated Chidambaram in December 2014 for violations in the FIPB approval.
Chidambaram had expressed his anger against Investigating Officer Rajeshwar Singh when his son's companies were raided in December 2014. The joint raid by ED and Income Tax Investigation Wing had unearthed massive property amassment by Karti’s companies in 14 countries. During the UPA tenure, the Finance Ministry had removed Singh from ED and the Supreme Court had slammed the Government. The apex court in October 2014 had ordered the Finance Ministry to reinstate the officer within three working days.