Fearing tip-off to Karti, CBI kept arrest plan top secret

NEW DELHI: The CBI, which has struggled to cap the leak of information pertaining to its investigations into sensitive cases, managed to keep its plan to arrest Karti Chidambaram under wraps.
Sources said the plan to pick up Karti from Chennai airport was kept a secret even from insiders to nip the possibility of tip-offs to the accused. “The entire operation was kept top secret and not many in the agencies could get wind of the action, leading to his arrest on Wednesday,” a top source said.



Anticipating legal wrangles, the Enforcement Directorate had even moved Chennai courts with caveats against any plea moved by Karti and his battery of lawyers against his arrest or obtaining a bail before the agencies could get hold of him. The precaution was considered necessary following the status report of CBI’s probe into the Aircel-Maxis case being recovered from Karti’s father P Chidambaram’s house.

The report was supposed to be shared only with the Supreme Court. Karti and others are under the scanner in the Aircel-Maxis case too. The surprise find led the CBI to drape additional veils of secrecy around their plans for Karti. The agencies, sources claimed, feared that Karti may have stayed on in London if he had been alerted about the plan to arrest him.

They had earlier informed the SC that he was destroying evidence abroad on his regular visits. In his previous appointments with the agencies, Karti was allegedly evasive in his answers to specific queries related to alleged payoffs received in companies associated with him.

Since the CBI registered a case against him in May last year, Karti has filed numerous applications in the Madras HC and the SC seeking reprieve from CBI and ED probes.

Meanwhile, ED is planning to seek Karti’s custody to probe allegations about his role in facilitating FIPB approvals when his father held charge of the finance ministry