SC asks Madras HC to settle Look Out Circular issue against Karti Chidambaram in 2 months

The Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachudon Wednesday (January 31) directed the Madras High Court to decide on the status of the Look Out Circular (LOC) against former Finance Minister P Chidambaram’ son Karti within two months. The bench also said that the LOC will stay till the high court disposes of the matter.

The case is about matters related to the Prevention of Corruption Act as filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

On Wednesday Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said he was not aware that the constitutional bench was not sitting today and that this bench was taking up these matters on this day. He requested an adjournment of this matter for today. But the bench said it was not be disposed off, at least not today.

The other matters concerned are based on territorial jurisdiction and which high court to go to for the accused.

Karti’s counsel, Kapil Sibal, said that on December 1 last year Karti was allowed to go abroad by the court. He said that as soon as Karti boarded the plane his house was raided, violating his fundamental rights.

Sibal submitted that the FIR was registered in Meghalaya, while the LOC was issued in Mumbai. “Now the accused has to go to Meghalaya to register his case,” he said.

Justice Chandrachud accepted that the jurisdiction of the LOC can be decided by this court, pointing out the weightage in Sibal’s submission.

Sibal said the court can consider the interim order, and an interim protection can be provided for a month or a month and-a-half, as well as the decision on the territorial jurisdiction. The ASG asked for a week’s time which Sibal refused. The CJI clarified that the high court is to decide on the matters of territorial jurisdiction on the basis of merits.

The ASG suggests that the FIR matters fall under the Delhi High Court jurisdiction, so all the matters can be transferred to the Delhi High Court, eliminating the problem of different high courts.

The bench then said that the Supreme Court on July 14 last year had passed an order of stay. The bench said that relevant writ petitions seem to have been challenged on the LOC and were heard by the division bench of Madras High Court on June 16 last year. The high court is directed to dispose off the mater within two months.

The issue of territorial jurisdiction is kept open.

The interim order (of August 18, 2017) will continue until the matter is disposed off and karti’s traveling abroad will be allowed if the high court deems it appropriate.

The remaining SLPs stands disposed off.

The fact of the matter is in the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) registering of a money laundering case against Karti. The agency has registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), which is the ED’s equivalent of an First Information Report (FIR), against those named in a complaint filed by the CBI.

The names included in this case are Karti Chidambaram, INX Media and its directors, Peter and Indrani Mukerjea, and “unknown officials of the finance ministry”. The ECIR has been registered under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The CBI had also filed an FIR that named Karti. It alleged that he received kickbacks from the media house while his father was the finance minister. This was allegedly in return for the latter’s help in getting the finance ministry to overlook irregularities at the company.

The CBI raided 14 premises across Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai connected to Karti and the former INX Media bosses. Specifically, INX Media crossed the approved limit of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by several hundred crores and “made a downstream investment to the tune of 26 percent of its capital”, according to Vineet Vinayak, joint director of the CBI.

–      India Legal Bureau