"ED officials claimed they had already found in earlier raids that Karti-linked companies had accepted around two lakh dollars from Malaysian company Maxis, when the files of Maxis" takeover of Aircel were with P Chidambaram, the then Finance Minister.
Chennai/Delhi: The Chennai and Delhi homes and official premises of former Union minister P. Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram was raided by a team of Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday. "Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued notices to the ED in cases where the submission is that the ED has no jurisdiction to conduct any investigation in the so called Aircel-Maxis case". The raids took place after Chidambaram failed to appear before the ED.
The probe agency had registered a case against Karti and others under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in May 2017.
Karti Chidambaram's lawyer Arun Natarajan was reported to have said the nothing was found or seized in the raids.
Chidambaram issued a statement saying: "This morning the ED searched my residence in Delhi as well as my family's residence in Chennai".
The CBI alleged that Karti Chidambaram received money from INX Media for using his influence to manipulate a tax probe against it in a case of violation of FIPB conditions to receive investment from Mauritius.
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Reacting to the ED searches, senior Congress leader Karate Thiagarajan said it has become a routine for central agencies to raid Chidambaram's house on holidays.
There is no predicate scheduled offence.
It is said that the Foreign Investment Promotion Board FIPB in 2006 granted approval for the Aircel-Maxis telecom deal when Mr Chidambaram was the finance minister.
"The investigation carried out so far reveals that the nature and objective of payment, made by ATVL to ASCPL as not genuine and doubtful, and indicates that the payments appear to be consideration in lieu of the irregular FIPB approval given by then FM bypassing the Cabinet committee on economic affairs", ED had recorded in its attachment order.
Following the FIPB clearance, the INX Media said it had received Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) of Rs 46.20 million, but actually received Rs 3,053.60 million between August 2007 and May 2008, the ED said. Hence, CCEA was competent to grant approval.
