New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday attached properties to the tune of Rs 11.04 crore belonging to Congress MP Karti Chidambaram in the INX money laundering case, an official statement said here.
The ED said that out of four attached properties, one is an immovable asset located in Coorg district of Karnataka. A provisional order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) has been issued against Karti, the statement said. Karti Chidamabaram, son of former union minister and senior Congress leader P Chidamabaram, is a sitting MP from Sivaganga Lok Sabha seat in Tamil Nadu and was arrested in the INX case both by the CBI as well as the ED.
The case pertains to alleged illegal gratification received "directly or indirectly" from INX Media Pvt Limited to which Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval was granted during the tenure of his father as Union finance minister in the UPA government.
What is INX media case? In January 2008, the finance ministry flagged FDI transactions of over Rs 305 crore by three Mauritius-based companies in INX Media Pvt Ltd. Back then, it was owned by Peter and Indrani Mukerjea. The Income Tax department which took up the investigation asked ED to probe the case. In 2010, ED registered a case against the firm under provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
What is the allegation against Karti? Six years later, ED stumbled upon documents linked to INX Media while probing a company associated with Karti. According to the ED, the documents indicated that payouts were made to Karti's firm from INX Media when the FIPB approval came from the finance ministry. CBI registered an FIR on May 15, 2017 in to the alleged irregularities in the FIPB clearance. ED filed a PMLA case next year.
Other cases against Karti- ED had earlier booked Karti in another PMLA case linked to the Chinese Visa scam case. His close aide Bhaskar Raman was accused him of taking ₹50 lakh bribe from a top executive of Vedanta group company Talwandi Sabo Power Ltd (TSPL). The bribe was meant to facilitate the re-use of Project Visas issued for Chinese workers who were deployed in the company's construction of a 1980 MW thermal power plant at Mansa in Punjab in 2011. The agency said it was in possession of several email communications between the firm officials and Karti's aide.
