The Enforcement Directorate searched the Jorbagh residence of the Congress leader P. Chidamabaram here and searched multiple premises linked to his son, Karti, and his friends across Delhi and Chennai in the Aircel-Maxis case.
Four places in Chennai, including the premises of Mr. Karti’s two friends, and one in Delhi were searched.
While nothing was found in Chennai, the agency claimed it had seized some important papers from Delhi’s Jorbagh premises.
“The Delhi house is registered in the name of Mr. Karti and his mother. His father lives there on rent,” an official said. Mr. Chidambaram was at his Jorbagh residence when the ED team reached there in the morning.
The former Finance Minister said the agencies had searched his Chennai and Delhi residence three times so far, but did not find anything. He said during the Saturday search, ED officials were “embarrassed and apologetic” after they found that he lived there. Mr. Chidambaram said the Supreme Court had on Friday issued notices to the respondents in the cases filed by his son.
No FIR
“The main ground in the cases is that there is no FIR in respect of a scheduled crime registered by any police agency, including the CBI … in the absence of a predicate offence, there are obviously no proceeds of crime and therefore, ED has no jurisdiction to investigate the matter under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA),” he said.
He said he had anticipated that, in view of the notices, the ED would do “some drama to cover up their tracks” and it would search the premises in Chennai again.
“I told them that he [Mr. Karti] is a resident of Chennai and I am the occupant…since they had a search warrant, I said I had no objection, but I would record my protest that there was no scheduled offence, consequently there were no proceeds of crime and the ED had no jurisdiction to investigate under PMLA,” he said.
He said the agency searched the place and found nothing.
“Since they had to justify why they came here, they took away papers relating to a statement made by the government in Parliament in 2012 or 2013 on the case,” he said.
'Comedy of errors'
Mr. Chidambaram termed the ED raids against his son “ a comedy of errors ” and claimed the officers were left “embarrassed” and “apologetic” as they could not find anything.
“They have searched premises in Chennai again, but in a comedy of errors they came to search my premises in Jorbagh,” Mr. Chidambaram said.
“Officers told me that they believed that Karti was an occupant of the house. I told them he is a resident of Chennai and I am the occupant of this house,” he added.
(with inputs from PTI)
