Scam probe at ‘critical stage’: Finance Minister on Karti issue

However, Jaitley refused to divulge more details about the possible money laundering case involving Congress leader P. Chidambaram’s son Karti’s firms.

Denying that there was any political vendetta involved in the probe, Jaitley told the Lok Sabha that the government was not influenced by the opposition’s stance over the issue that stalled parliament proceedings on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. 

He said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had “already filed a chargesheet into the case and procedures were being followed in strict compliance with the law. Let the case details go to the court and then all the documents will become public, he said. 

Raids by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and other investigating agencies were conducted in Chennai, he said. AIADMK members raised the issue against Karti in Parliament, displaying copies of an English daily which claimed that, as per investigations by the ED and Income Tax authorities during searches on his premises, he had invested in real estate across the world. 

Earlier, demands for an urgent CBI inquiry into the alleged scam was made in the Lok Sabha. Participating in a special discussion on the issue, T J Venkatesh (AIADMK) also repeatedly referred to two former DMK Union Ministers and a former Finance Minister in the UPA-II by name but Speaker Sumitra Mahajan disallowed it. 

Venkatesh regretted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power on the promise of unearthing black money, but his government was doing precious little.’’