New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed Karti Chidambaram, son of senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram, to visit the United Kingdom, from September 20 to September 30 in connection with his daughter’s admission.
A three judge bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Kanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud granted permission to Karti Chidambaram despite strong opposition from the Enforcement Directorate.
The Bench had allowed Karti to travel abroad with certain conditions, including that he would not open or close any bank account abroad. The bench had asked Karti to file an undertaking about his flight schedule and return date to India.
It had also directed Karti to return his passport to the probe agency when he returned. On behalf of the Enforcement Directorate, Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the bench that Karti has been “blatantly misusing” the liberty granted to him by the court for travel abroad, using it to protract investigations. He said the liberty granted to him is “blatantly and brazenly hampering, subverting, jeopardising and protracting” the investigation pending against him in the Aircel Maxis Case, which the agency has to complete in six months.
The ED said in the last six months Karti has remained unavailable for investigation for a total number of 51 days due to his foreign visits.
It said: “Whenever he was confronted with the documents, he showed his irritation, sometimes anger and then conveniently avoided to answer the questions on one pretext or the other.”
Karti has also failed to provide the documents required during investigations as per schedule and in the circumstances, an effective investigation could take place only during his custodial integration, the agency said.
Karti is accused of having received Rs 10 lakhs in kickbacks in 2007 to clear foreign investment worth Rs 305 crore for INX Media, which was owned by Peter and Indrani Mukherjea, when his father P. Chidambaram was finance minister.
