Karti Chidambaram moves Madras HC against CBI summons

CHENNAI: Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union minister P Chidambaram, has moved the Madras High Court seeking quashing of the fresh summons issued by the CBI for questioning him in connection with a corruption case.

The CBI had on July 19 issued the summons asking Karti to be present today for questioning in the matter related to alleged irregularities in Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance given to media group INX Media for receiving funds from Mauritius when his father was the finance minister.

The agency has alleged that a firm "indirectly controlled" by Karti had received money from INX Media, run by Indrani and Peter Mukerjea in 2007.

Senior Counsel Goal Subramaniam, representing Karti, submitted it was a settled principle of law that issuing summons to an accused and interrogating him would amount to violation of fundamental right guaranteed under Article 20(3) of the Constitution.

"The Article grants immunity from self incrimination. Thus the instant summons is only to make the petitioner make self-incriminating statements when it is the case of the petitioner that he has not met any official in the ministry of finance for any purpose much less for FIPB approval for the INX group," he said.

An FIR has been registered against Karti and INX Media along with eight others for alleged irregularities in FIPB clearance given to the media house for receiving foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2007.

The probe agency had claimed that the FDI proposal of the media house was "fallacious" but the then finance minister Chidambaram had cleared it.

P Chidambaram had issued a strong statement in response to the FIR, saying that the government was using the CBI and other agencies to target his son.

In May this year, the agency had conducted raids at the premises of Karti, Peter and Indrani Mukerjea at 14 locations in Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai in connection with the case.