Having repeatedly evaded the summons for the past two years, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s son Karti finally appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday in connection with the INX Media bribery case. He was interrogated for more than nine hours and let off around 11 pm. He has been directed to appear before the agency with clarifications for the questions sought, ED asked him to come again next week for further clarification.
Karti was first summoned by the ED in the Aircel-Maxis scam also but there too he evaded appearing personally. For the past two years, Karti was sending advocates before the investigators. In INX Media case, Karti is accused of accepting `5 core as bribe from the TV channel owners for escaping from an Income Tax probe for violating (Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) rules.
Peter and Indrani Mukherjea, the TV channel promoters who are already accused in the Sheena Bora murder case, were questioned by ED and CBI several times with regard to allegedly paying kickbacks to Karti, when the FIPB files were pending with his father Chidambaram in 2007.
CBI in its FIR said that Chidambaram acted in illegal way to give post-facto approval to the dubious INX Media foreign investment case. The approval was only for `5 cores and Mukherjeas illegally got around `308 crore from tax havens. When Income Tax authorities caught them for this illegality, the promoters sought help of Karti and he took bribe of around `5 crore to get an illegal post facto approval for remittance of `308 crore from firms abroad.
According to sources, ED sleuths cornered Karti with the receipts and bank statements of his companies showing the money transfer from Peter and Indrani related firms.
Karit’s firms Chess Management and Advantage Strategic Consulting had got pay offs from the TV channel promoters. It was seen many times advocates entering ED office and coming out appraising father Chidambaram over phone about the developments and their interactions with Karti and ED officers.