Karti, Indrani Mukherjea face-to-face in Mumbai jail, meet recorded

Mumbai: Karti Chidambaram, son of senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, was on Sunday confronted with Indrani Mukerjea at Mumbai's Byculla jail Sunday afternoon. A video camera recorded the confrontation.

Karti has contested Indrani and Peter Mukerjea's statements levelling allegations of bribery against him, underlining that the allegations were being made by the murder accused 10 years after the alleged bribery incident.

According to a report in NDTV, sources said Mukerjea was called into a separate room in the Byculla women's jail premises to meet Karti. Six CBI officers were present in the room, leading the probe.

While no jail officials were allowed inside, two women constables and a male police officer were deployed outside the room to monitor Indrani Mukerjea.

After the confrontation, Karti was taken back to Delhi. 

Terming the allegations levelled against him as false, Karti said that they are politically motivated.

Karti Chidambaram is accused of facilitating, for a bribe, foreign investment approvals for television company INX Media, when his father was finance minister.

Indrani Mukerjea, the former co-owner of INX Media and accused in the Sheena Bora murder case, brought up Karti Chidambaram's father's name in her statement to the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

She and her husband Peter Mukerjea told the ED that they had met P Chidambaram in the North Block when he was the finance minister, to seek government approval to foreign investment proposals worth around Rs 300 crore in their company INX Media. The couple alleged he had asked them to help his son's business and to "make foreign remittances" for this purpose.

P Chidambaram and his 46-year-old son have denied the allegations, calling it a case of "political vendetta".

The CBI has been given Karti Chidambaram's custody till Tuesday though the agency had asked for two-weeks' custody, arguing that he was not cooperating with the investigation.

Karti was arrested from Chennai airport on Wednesday morning soon after he returned from the United Kingdom, was brought to Delhi and produced before a duty magistrate.