Former finance minister P Chidambaram and his legal team told a Delhi court on Thursday that it is ready to surrender before the Enforcement Directorate in the INX Media case and send him to custody for questioning instead of going to judicial custody or Tihar Jail has given.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who was representing Chidambaram, told the court that the CBI had no reason to send him to judicial custody except to humiliate the senior Congress leader who had served as the country’s finance and home minister.
Chidambaram was arrested by the CBI on August 21 and has completed 15 days in its custody.
Sibal told Special Judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar there was no principle in law that once an accused’s police custody is over, he would have to be sent to judicial custody as a “necessary consequence”.
“There is no scope of tampering with evidence. In fact, I am willing to go to ED custody. I am willing to surrender,” he told the court. This isn’t the first time that Chidambaram had submitted himself to questioning by investigators to avoid going to Tihar jail. Of the 15 days that he spent in CBI custody, three were at his request to avoid an overnight stay in the country’s largest and the most populated prison complex.
The CBI, which had made it clear that it had completed questioning the 73-year-old politician in this case, has opposed Chidambaram’s request. It spoke about concerns of tampering of evidence if Chidambaram isn’t sent to judicial custody.
The government’s second most-senior law officer Tushar Mehta also cited the Supreme Court’s verdict to refuse pre-arrest bail to Chidambaram earlier in the day, underscoring that the two-judge bench had accepted the possibility of tampering. For impact, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta also reminded the judge that he was dealing with a case where two superior courts had already denied relief to Chidambaram.
P Chidambaram and his son Karti, however, have been granted anticipatory bail in a second case investigated by the CBI and ED relating to foreign investment approvals relating to telecom company Aircel.
The case of INX Media relates to alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance given to the media group for obtaining foreign investment of Rs 305 crore in 2007, when Chidambaram was the finance minister. The CBI filed a first information report on May 15, 2017, alleging irregularities in the manner of granting clearance.
