After Karti Chidambaram on Thursday, on Friday it was the turn of his father and former union minister P Chidambaram to turn up at the Enforcement Directorate for questioning in connection with a money-laundering probe related to INX Media. Chidambaram had been summoned to record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The ED attached Karti’s assets worth an estimated Rs 54 crore, located in India and abroad in the case last year. The agency had registered the PMLA case on the basis of a CBI FIR and had alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007, when Chidambaram was the finance minister.
It registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) against the accused named in the CBI complaint, including Karti, INX Media and its directors Peter and Indrani Mukerjea, both of whom are now in jail on charges on murder.
—India Legal Bureau