After Saturday raids, Chidambaram says ED action politically motivated

The ED case pertained to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board approval granted in 2006 by the then finance minister P Chidambaram. Searches were carried out in connection with INX Media money laundering case filed against Karti Chidambaram by the agency in May last year. In New Delhi, an official source confirmed the raids.

Attributing political motives to the raids at his residences, former union minister P Chidambaram has said that he would neither bend nor break and he would continue to speak and write.

“I belong to the Opposition party. Let the government misuse the ED. I shall neither bend nor break and I shall continue to speak and write,” Chidambaram said, acknowledging that the ED has searched his residences in Delhi and his family’s residence in Chennai on Saturday morning. “Nothing was found and the panchnamas speak for themselves,” he claimed.

“Yesterday (Friday), 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 ED was asked to file its reply and the cases were adjourned to 30 Jan 2018,” Chidambaram said in a statement issued here.

“There is no FIR against me or my son in the Aircel-Maxis case. There is no predicate scheduled offence. Hence the ED has no jurisdiction. Yet the ED, at the instance of the government, continues to misuse its powers,” the former finance minister alleged.

A total of five officials were involved in the operation and they could not find anything during the raids said Karti’s counsel.