INX case: Karti Chidambaram allowed to travel abroad after depositing ₹2 Cr

The Supreme Court on Monday (February 22) allowed Congress MP Karti Chidambaram to travel abroad. Karti is under investigation in the ₹305 crore INX Media money laundering case. The court has asked him to deposit ₹2 crore.

The Enforcement Directorate probing the case opposed the grant of conditional security amount saying that another court had told him to deposit ₹10 crore and that the same must be continued.

Also read: HC quashes I-T proceedings against Karti Chidambaram, wife

Karti has been asked to file an undertaking about his flight schedule and return date to India. The bench also directed him to return his passport to the probe agency upon his return.

Karti, the son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, is being investigated by the ED and the CBI in several cases, including the one relating to FIPB clearance to INX Media for receiving foreign funds to the tune of ₹305 crore when his father was the finance minister. Karti was also previously allowed to go abroad.

The INX Media scam case saw Chidambaram imprisoned for more than 100 days in Delhi’s Tihar Jail in 2019. He was granted bail by the Supreme Court which told him to surrender his passport, make himself available for questioning and not influence witnesses. He was also restricted from speaking to the media on the INX Media case.

“I am going to obey the Supreme Court order and I will not comment on the case,” Chidambaram had said.

Also read: Granted bail in INX Media case, Chidambaram walks out of prison

Karti, the MP from Tamil Nadu’s Sivaganga, was arrested at the Chennai airport in March 2018, soon after his flight from London landed. CBI officials had claimed he was not cooperating with the investigation and wanted to keep him in custody and question him.

After spending more than 20 days in Tihar Jail, Karti got bail from the Delhi High Court. He faces allegations that he and his father were instrumental in infusion of massive foreign funds into INX Media, a company founded by Peter and Indrani Mukerjea, in 2007, when Chidambaram was finance minister.