INX Media Case: Delhi High Court Relaxes Karti Chidambaram's Bail Condition, Allows Foreign Travel With Prior Intimation To CBI

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday relaxed the bail condition imposed on Karti Chidambaram in relation to the INX media corruption case, requiring him to obtain trial court's permission for foreign travel.

The Congress MP is now required to give prior intimation to the Court as well as CBI, two weeks prior to his travel. He will also be required to share his full travel itinerary.

Justice Ravinder Dudeja also directed Chidambaram to attend the court proceedings regularly and also not to make any attempt to protract the trial.

“The application is allowed and disposed of in aforesaid terms,” the Court said.

A detailed order is awaited. 

“The petitioner shall not leave India without prior permission of the Trial Court; he shall deposit his passport with the Trial Court, if not deposited so far,” the direction in question read.

Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra appeared for Karti Chidambaram, along with Advocates Arshdeep Singh and Akshat Gupta. CBI was represented by SPP Anupam S Sharma.

Karti P Chidambaram was granted bail by a coordinate bench in March 2018. It was directed that before travelling abroad, he should get the trial court's permission.

The CBI had opposed the application, citing the case of fugitive businessman and former Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Mallya.

However, it was Chidambaram's case that he is an MP and is not a flight risk.

While granting him bail, the Court had held that there was no possibility of Chidambaram fleeing from justice as he has roots in the society, his parents are senior lawyers and he has a family to take care of.

CBI had registered an FIR dated 15th May 2017 against INX Media Pvt. Ltd., Karti Chidambaram and others for offences under sec. 120B read with sec. 420 of IPC along with sec. 8, 12(2) and 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Since the offences find mention in the Schedule appeneded to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, a case was also registered by the Directorate of Enforcement (DoE), Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue, Government of India on 18th May, 2017 and an investigation was therefore taken up for a possible action under PMLA.

The said FIR was registered on the allegations that Indrani Muherjea and Pratim Mukherjea, Director and COO respectively of INX Media entered into a criminal conspiracy with Karti P Chidambaram and committed illegal acts in receiving excess Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) than the amount approved by Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).

Other allegation was that such unauthorized downstream investment by INX Media in INX News without the approval of FIPB, were got scuttled by Karti P. Chidambram by influencing the public servants of FIPB Unit, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Ministry of Finance (MoF)

It was therefore alleged that owing to the criminal conspiracy and influence of P Chidambaram and Karti Chidambaram, such officials abused their official positions and caused undue favours to INX Media due to which INX Media had paid huge amounts to some companies which Karti P Chidambaram had substantial interest in, either directly or indirectly. The investigation revealed that for regularization of excess FDI and downstream investment by INX Media, proceeds of crime were generated on few occasions from criminal activities of the said case and the same were received by Karti P. Chidambram through some shell companies associated with him.

Furthermore, it was revealed that a fake invoice dated 26th June 2008 of Rs. 11,23,600 was raised in the name of ASCPL, a company beneficially owned by Karti Chidambaram, for providing consultancy services to INX Media.

The investigation further revealed that four more fake invoices in the names of four other companies for amounts, totalling to approximately US $ 700,000 (equivalent to Rs.3.2 corers), in the month of September, 2008 were also raised on INX Media.

Title: Karti P Chidambaram v. CBI