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A Delhi Court on 24 March 2021 took cognizance and issued summons to Former Union Minister P Chidambaram, his son Karti P. Chidambaram and 8 others in the main chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the INX Media money laundering case.

A Special CBI Judge NK Nagpal issued notice to all accused persons for April 7 in the matter and observed that,

"I find sufficient material and grounds for proceeding further in the matter against all the ten accused persons named in the complaint, out of which six accused are companies, for commission of offence under Section 3 read with Section 70 of the PMLA, which is punishable under Section 4 of the said Act.”

The other accused in the case include Chartered Accountant S Bhaskaraman and Peter Mukherjea. Also the INX Media Pvt Ltd, Advantage Strategic companies , Kriya FMCG Distributors Pvt Ltd, North Star Software Solutions are also named in the chargesheet.

The FIR  was registered by the CBI on allegations that, “Smt. Indrani Mukerjea, Director and Sh. Pratim Mukerjea, Chief Operating Officer of INX Media entered into a criminal conspiracy with Sh. Karti P. Chidambram, Director, Chess Management Services and in pursuance of such conspiracy, penal actions arising out of illegal acts committed by INX Media in   receiving   excess   Foreign   Direct   Investment   (FDI)   than   the amount   approved   by  the   Foreign   Investment   Promotion   Board (FIPB) and  unauthorized downstream investment by INX Media in INX News without the approval of FIPB, were got scuttled by Sh. Karti P. Chidambram by influencing the public servants of FIPB Unit, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) Ministry of Finance (MoF), by virtue of his relations with Sh. P. Chidambram,the then Union Finance Minister. It was alleged that in pursuance of the above criminal conspiracy and under the influence of Sh. Karti P. Chidambram and Sh. P. Chidambram, these unknown officers / officials of the MoF had abused their official positions and had caused undue favours to INX Media and as a consideration for such acts of favoritism, INX Media had paid huge   amounts   to   some   companies   in   which   Sh.   Karti   P. Chidambram had a substantial interest, directly or indirectly.”

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

“… a charge sheet  for commission of offences punishable under Section 120­B IPC read with Sections 420, 468, 471 IPC and under Sections 9 and 13 (1)(d) read with 13 (2) of the PC Act, 1988 and substantive offences thereof on the part of concerned accused persons was ultimately filed by the CBI before this court on 17.10.2019 against total 14accused persons, including the accused Karti P. Chidambaram, P.Chidambaram, Pratim @ Peter Mukerjea, S. Bhaskaran Raman, INX Media, INX News, ASCPL, ASCSPL, CMSPL and some other officials   / officers   of   the   concerned   ministry   involved   in commission of alleged offences. However, Smt. Indrani Mukerjea was not chargesheeted in the said case as she had been granted a pardon and was made an approver in the case.”- stated the complaint.

P Chidambaram was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from his residence in relation to the case on August 21, 2019, a day after his plea for anticipatory bail was rejected by the Delhi High Court and had opined that prima facie, the allegations were serious in nature and that P Chidambaram had played an active and important role. He was finally released from Tihar Jail after the Supreme Court granted him bail in the ED case on December 4, 2019 nearly after 2 months of being custody.

Therefore after going through the contents of the complaint and documents available the special  judge found "sufficient material and grounds" to proceed in the matter against all the ten accused persons out of which 6 are companies, for offences under Sec. 3 read with Sec. 70 of the PMLA (“Act”) which is punishable under Sec. 4 of the Act. 

Case title: ED v. P Chidambaram, 2021