FIPB clearance: Karti cannot go abroad without joining probe, says apex court
Karti Chidambaram (PTI /File photo) Karti Chidambaram (PTI /File photo)
The Supreme Court on Monday made it clear that Karti Chidambaram, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, cannot travel abroad before joining the investigations being conducted against him by the CBI in connection with a case of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to a company.
“Our only concern is you going abroad without participating in investigations,” a bench of Chief Justice of India J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud said, staying the August 10 Madras High Court order that put on hold the lookout notice issued by the CBI against Karti. The bench fixed August 18 to hear the matter, allowing counsel Gopal Subramanium time to inform it when Karti would appear before the probe agency.
The court was hearing a petition by the CBI challenging the HC order. The bench rejected Subramanium’s submission that Karti would furnish an undertaking that he would not leave the country. “I had experiences in my court. We allowed some people to go abroad and they never came back,” the CJI said. “You must appear before the investigating agency,” the bench told Karti and asked him to suggest a date.
Appearing for the agency, Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the FIR was registered on May 15 and raids carried out a day later on the basis of search warrants issued by a CBI court in Delhi.
“The raids yielded invoices which showed payments of substantial amounts to companies held by the respondent in Switzerland and Singapore,” Mehta said. Subramanium argued that the lookout circular seems to have been issued before the notice asking him to appear before the investigating officer.
Asked why he did not appear before the investigating officer on the given date of July 21, Subramanium said Karti was in the Madras High Court that day as his petition seeking quashing of the FIR was being heard. But the CJI said, “We do not appreciate you saying he was in court. Why should he be in court? Court is a kind of protection. No one can even look at you when you are in court… He is required to participate in the investigation…”.
Rejecting the petitioner’s contentions, the CJI said “you can’t imagine the kind of people we have allowed to go abroad. Some of them were very respectable.”
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