Former Union minister P Chidambaram’s son and Congress leader Karti Chidambaram.The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed newly-elected Congress Lok Sabha MP Karti Chidambaram’s plea seeking a return of the Rs 10 crore which he deposited with the court’s registry in order to travel abroad.
A vacation bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Aniruddha Bose rejected Karti’s plea, in which he had sought a return of the amount claiming that he had taken out a loan for paying the deposit and was paying interest on it.
On May 7, a bench headed by the CJI had allowed Karti, to travel to the UK, US, France, Germany and Spain in May and June this year. “The applicant (Karti) shall make a deposit of Rs 10 crore only before the Secretary General of this Court, which will be returned to him after he comes back to the country,” the bench had said.
In January too, the apex court had granted Karti permission to travel abroad after depositing Rs 10 crore with the secretary general of the Supreme Court.
Karti is facing cases being investigated by ED and CBI, including one which relates to Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance to INX Media for receiving Rs 305 crore in foreign funding when his father, P Chidambaram, was the finance minister.
