New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked Karti Chidambram — son of former f8inance minister P. Chidambaram and newly elected Lok Sabha member from Sivaganga constituency — to pay attention to his constituency as it declined his plea for the refund of Rs 10 crores deposited with the top court as a condition to travel abroad.
The vacation bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Aniruddha Bose counselled Karti Chidambram to “pay attention to his constituency” as he urged the court to refund Rs. 10 crores that he had deposited as a condition to travel abroad.
Asking junior Chidambaram to pay attention to his constituency, the CJI Gogoi said, “We will refund Rs 10 crore but we will modify our second order and will direct you to deposit Rs 20 crore. Is it okay? Pay attention to your constituency.”
The court was referring to its May 7 order by its it had asked Karti Chidambaram to deposdit Rs 10 crores as a condition to travel abroad. Prior to his court hasd on January 30, 2019 had asked junior Chidambaramn to deposit Rs 10 croires as a condition to visit United Kingdom, France and Spain.
As the counsel Shally Bhasin sought the refund of Rs 10 crores that were deposited by Karti Chidabaram in pursuance to January 30, 2019, order, the Chief Justice Goigoi said in that case we will modify the May 7 order and increase the amount to Rs 20 crores.
Mr Chidambaram is being investigated by the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate in an alleged money laundering case in Aircel-Maxix and INX Media cases. The former finance minister P. Chadambaram too is being probed in the cases in context of FIPB clearance.
Karti has contended that the amount of Rs 10 crores deposited with the secretary general of top court was taken as a loan from a bank and he was paying interest on it.
The money that Karti Chandambaram today sought to be refunded was deposited by him in pursuance to January 30 top court order as a condition for allowing him to travel to the United Kingdom and France from February 10 to February26 and then to visit Spain from March 23 t0 March 23rd to 31, 2019.
