Former FM bail plea to be heard on Friday

New Delhi: In a blow to senior Congress leader P. Chidambram, the Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to hold an urgent hearing of the former finance minister’s plea for anticipatory bail in INX Media corruption and money laundering case.

With arrest of Mr Chidambram, his plea for anticipatory bail before the Supreme Court has become infructuous. Now he will have to apply for bail before the trial court.

The daylong efforts for an early hearing of Mr Chidambaram’s petition against Delhi high court’s August 20, 2019, order rejecting his plea for anticipatory bail in INX Media scam started with senior counsel Kapil Sibal urging the bench headed by Justice N.V. Ramana to hold an urgent hearing as former finance minister was faced with the prospects of arrest. However, hopes for an urgent hearing faded when registrar (judic-ial) Surya Prakash Singh (RJ-I Singh) ruled out any hearing today with little chance on Thursday. Apparently he told couple of lawyers including Ankur Chawla that in normal course the plea for anticipatory bail would get listed on Friday (August 23, 2019) or Monday (August 26, 2019).

Emerging from the office of RJ-I post 5 pm, the lawyers of Sibal’s legal team announced that hearing is likely on Friday. However, after some deliberations, they said that hearing was not taking place today and nothing can be said for sure for tomorrow or a later day.

Mr Chidambaram was finance minister in UPA government at that time.