Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram continued his legal battles to preempt his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate as and when he comes out of the CBI clutches in the INX Media money laundering case.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday extended till Wednesday protection from arrest granted to Chidambaram even as his lawyers denied that he was evasive during questioning and his family junked allegation of amassing massive wealth outside the country.
The Bench of Justices R Banumathi and AS Bopanna said it would hear the arguments of the ED on Chidambaram’s two petitions, including the challenge to remand orders, on Wednesday.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Chidambaram, filed an application seeking direction to the ED to produce the transcripts of the questioning conducted on December 19, January 1 and January 21 in the case.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for ED, said he would like to reply to the fresh application during the course of his arguments.
The transcripts will show whether Chidambaram was evasive during his questioning, as alleged by the ED, Sibal contended.
The ED cannot place documents in the court randomly and “behind the back” for seeking Chidambaram’s custody, Sibal said in his arguments.
“They are just producing documents at random and saying this is part of the case diary. They cannot place the documents behind the back and seek custody of accused,” said Sibal.
Senior advocate AM Singhvi, also appearing for Chidambaram, said the former Minister was not evasive during his questioning and has fully co-operated in the probe.
“You (ED) want to arrest me, but for what reason? The answer is -- to humiliate me, to humiliate me and to humiliate me, minute by minute and hour by hour,” Singhvi said.
He argued that ED had lodged the case in 2017 whereas the offences alleged are of the period 2007-2008. Singhvi said penal provisions under which the case has been lodged became “scheduled offences” under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) only after the 2009 amendment and ED cannot do this retrospectively.
“You are trying to paint a person as a kingpin when these alleged offences did not exist at that time,” he said, adding that fundamental right of citizens under Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty) cannot be suspended.
On the allegations of Chidambaram being evasive, Singhvi said 12 questions were put to him and though six of them were repetitive, he answered all of them and never said “to hell with you and I would not answer your questions”.
“The question put to me (Chidambaram) was do I have a foreign bank account. I said I do not have any foreign bank account. Then another question was asked does your son have any foreign bank account. I said yes and he has taken requisite permission from the RBI for that,” he said.
“How does question of evasion arise unless they (ED) want you to give an answer which they want,” he said, adding that ED has presented a “completely distorted version” of what evasion is.
Referring to the High Court verdict which had used “gravity of offence” to deny anticipatory bail to Chidambaram, Singhvi said ‘gravity’ is a subjective word and what is grave for someone may not be grave for others.
Meanwhile, Chidambaram’s family on Tuesday alleged the Government’s motive was to demonising him and demanded the Centre produce evidence in support of its allegations like properties in multiple countries and numerous shell companies.
In a statement, the family said they were distressed that the “media has been reporting completely wild, unverified and unsubstantiated allegations” against Chidambaram in the last few days.
Alleging that the Government’s motive was to demonise and humiliate Chidambaram, his family claimed the media was unable to uphold “liberty against calumny”, adding that they were hence deeply saddened.
“Every person is presumed innocent unless proved guilty in a court of law,” the statement said.