INX Media case: CBI gets custody of Karti Chidambaram for 3 more days

NEW DELHI: A special court today extended Karti Chidambaram's CBI custody by another three days. Karti, who is being investigated in connection to the INX Media case, has already been in CBI remand + for the last nine days.

Karti will now be in CBI custody till March 12. Delhi's Patiala House court will next hear Karti's bail plea on March 15.


The agency had sought Karti's custody for six additional days, citing "new incriminating materials" as grounds to interrogate him further. It had also moved two applications, seeking court permission to confront Karti with his Chartered Accountant S Bhaskararaman. The second is to allow the CBI to bring Indrani and Peter Mukerjea to Delhi and identify the places where they met Karti Chidambaram.

CBI judge Sunil Rana gave his nod to the first application, making way for the CBI to bring Karti and his chartered accountant face-to-face in Tihar jail. Bhaskararaman was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on February 16 and has been sent to judicial custody till March 22.

Additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta said that a CD and documents were recovered in connection with the case which needed to be sent to Central Forensic Science Laboratory for examination.

The ASG said that new incriminating materials have been found and Karti has to be confronted with them.

"About 3-4 days back, we got information about location of documents related to the case at a certain address in Chennai. We searched the place and recovered important documents. Some of these documents were also submitted in the court today," a CBI spokesperson told TOI.

However, defence counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi opposed any further custodial interrogation of Karti.

"It's tragic for me (Karti). They have no new reason for my remand. They are inventing one. CBI has to justify remand every day and every minute," Singhvi said on behalf of Karti.

It is a ten-year-old case and all the documents are available with them and "they need my custody to harass me", Karti said through his counsel.

The beleagured Karti found a measure of relief today after the Delhi high court granted him interim protection from being arrested by the ED in a money laundering case.

Karti is accused of using his clout as the son of then finance minister P Chidambaram to get Foreign Investment Promotional Board (FIPB) clearance for INX Media in 2007, which was earlier accused of serious violations in receiving overseas funds.

He was arrested by the CBI on February 28 on the basis of a testimony of INX Media directors Indrani and Peter Mukerjea, alleging that they paid $7 lakh to him on the instructions of his father P Chidamabaram, as quid pro quo for FIPB clearance.