Supreme Court refuses to stay ED summons against Karti Chidambaram

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to grant immediate relief to Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union finance minister P. Chidambaram, seeking a stay on the summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate for his appearance for interrogation on March 1.

Additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the CBI, strongly opposed the petitioner filing an application in a pending issue related to the CBI. He said only a fresh petition challenging the ED summons could be filed. He urged the court not to pass any order on the present application.  

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Amitava Roy and D.Y. Chandrachud, without granting any relief, deferred the hearing to March 6 as senior counsel Kapil Sibal and Gopal Subramanium submitted that they would file a substantive petition challenging the ED summons.

They said the present application was filed in the pending appeal as the entire ED case was an offshoot of the CBI case, in which chargesheet was yet to be filed. Mr Sibal pointed out that the CBI last examined Karti in August 2017 and till now no chargesheet has been filed.

He alleged that the petitioner was being harassed as fresh summons has been issued for his appearance on March 1, though he is returning to India only on the night of February 28. He said following permission granted by the Madras high court, Karti had gone abroad. He pleaded that the summons be kept pending and that he should be permitted to appear before the ED on March 9.