Delhi HC reserves order on Karti Chidambaram's bail plea in INX Media case

The Delhi High Court today reserved its order on the bail plea of Karti Chidambaram, son of senior Congress leader P Chidamabaram, in the INX Media corruption case filed by the CBI.

The Central Bureau of Investigation opposed the bail application, saying that tampering of evidence and influencing witnesses in the case were a possibility Justice S P Garg heard the CBI and Karti's lawyers after which he reserved the verdict.

The probe agency, represented by Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, alleged that Karti had tampered with certain evidence.

Senior advocates, including Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Gopal Subramanium, appearing for Karti's lawyers, contended that no case under the Prevention of Corruption Act was made out against their client since no public servant was questioned in the matter or made an accused.

They submitted that the FIR lodged in the case did not state which public servant or Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) official was influenced.

Karti's lawyers also denied the allegation of tampering with the evidence and added that when the CBI has not sought his further custodial interrogation, then why should he be kept in judicial custody.

They also said that no one else has been arrested in the case.

Karti had moved the high court seeking bail, hours after a court here had sent him to judicial custody till March 24.

A special court had on March 12 remanded Karti in judicial custody in the graft case and dismissed his plea that he be put in a separate cell in Tihar Jail in view of "threat perception".

The court had sent him to prison after the CBI, in whose custody he was quizzed for 12 days in a row after his arrest on February 28 in Chennai, said he was no longer required for further custodial interrogation.

Karti was arrested by the CBI on his return from the United Kingdom in connection with an FIR lodged on May 15 last year.

It alleged irregularities in a FIPB clearance given to a media house, INX Media, for receiving funds of about Rs 305 crore from overseas in 2007 when his father was the Union finance minister.

The CBI had initially alleged that Karti received Rs 10 lakh as a bribe for facilitating the FIPB clearance to INX Media. It, however, later revised the figure to USD 1 million  (about Rs 6.50 crore at the current exchange rate and Rs 4.5 crore in 2007).

The fresh evidence in the case, which triggered Karti's arrest, was based on a statement of Indrani Mukerjea, former director of INX Media (P) Ltd, who recorded it under Section 164 of the CrPC before a magistrate on February 17.

Indrani is at present lodged in a Mumbai prison in connection with the case of murder of her daughter Sheena Bora.