Supreme Court dismisses CBI challenge to P Chidambaram’s bail in INX Media case

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Last year, the Supreme Court rejected CBI’s claim that P Chidambaram posed a risk of flight (File)

New Delhi:

A request for review filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against the release on bail of former union minister and senior congressman P Chidambaram in the INX Media case was rejected by the Supreme Court on Thursday.

“The request for an oral hearing of the request for review at a public hearing is dismissed. We have carefully reviewed the motion for review and related documents and are satisfied that the order, for which review has been sought, does not suffer from any apparent error warranting its review. The motion for review is therefore dismissed, “said the judges in their decision.

On October 22, the Supreme Court granted him bail on the CBI case. The Supreme Court rejected the agency’s claim that Mr. Chidambaram, 74, was at risk of absconding.

Later in December, the highest court released him on bail in a case filed by the Directorate of Execution (ED) against him in the same case INX Media.

The Supreme Court observed that Mr. Chidambaram had participated in the investigation and ordered him to continue to do so and not to speak about the matter to the bail. He was also prohibited from traveling abroad and falsifying evidence or contacting witnesses.

The CBI had charged Mr. Chidambaram and others with allegedly receiving around 10 lakh rupees as a bribe for authorizing foreign investment for a private company INX Media.

The agency alleges that in 2007, during his mandate as Minister of Finance in the government of the UPA, P Chidambaram had facilitated a huge transfusion of funds foreign to the company, then owned by the former baron of media Peter Mukerjea and his wife Indrani Mukerjea.

Her son Karti Chidambaram has received bribes for the deal, investigators said, based on the statement by Indrani Mukerjea.

In a separate case, the Enforcement Directorate alleged that Mr. Chidambaram and his son used the bribes received from Mukerjeas to buy properties in India, the United Kingdom and Spain.

In August last year, the CBI arrested the former minister after a dramatic prosecution that ended with agency officials climbing the walls of Mr. Chidambaram’s house south of Delhi at the sight of television cameras.

On October 16, the ED arrested him in a money laundering case and questioned him.

He was released on bail in December after spending more than three months in Delhi prison in Tihar.

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