The Madras High Court today refrained from granting any relief to former Union minister P. Chidambaram’s son Karti, who sought quashing of the FIR filed by the CBI and its subsequent summonses in the INX Media case.
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Justice P. Velmurugan directed the court registry to return all the papers in the case to the petitioner so as to enable him approach the Delhi High Court which has superintendence powers in the matter.
The judge had on August 16 reserved orders on maintainability of Mr. Karti’s petitions seeking to quash the FIR and summons related to the case pending in a CBI special court in Delhi.
Before the verdict was pronounced today, the media was asked to leave the courtroom.
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In his order, the judge held that the petitions filed by Mr. Karti were maintainable and the high court had territorial jurisdiction.
But, in the interest of justice, and in order to avoid conflicting views in case any of the parties (other accused) moved the Delhi or Bombay High Court, the court held it was inclined to adopt the ‘doctrine of forum of convenience’ so that parties could move the convenient court.
On May 15, an FIR was registered by CBI against Mr. Karti and INX Media along with eight others for alleged irregularities in Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance given to the media house for receiving foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2007 when his father was the finance minister.
The probe agency had claimed the FDI proposal of the media house was “fallacious” but Mr. Chidambaram had cleared it.
The CBI had on July 19 issued summons, the second by the agency in the case, asking Mr. Karti to appear before it two days later.
Earlier, it had asked Mr. Karti and four others to appear for questioning on June 27 and 29. Mr. Karti had then informed the CBI through his lawyer that he needed more time to appear.
The agency had alleged that a firm “indirectly controlled” by Mr. Karti had received money from INX Media, run by Indrani and Peter Mukerjea in 2007.
During the hearing of the petitions earlier, the CBI had opposed them arguing they were not maintainable and wanted the court to dismiss them.
In May, the CBI had conducted raids at the premises of Mr. Karti, Peter and Indrani at 14 locations in Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai in connection with the case.
Incidentally, during the pendency of the petition challenging the summons, a ‘look out circular’ was issued by the government against Mr. Karti and subsequently stayed by the high court.
However, the Supreme Court had on August 14 stayed the high court order on an appeal by the Centre after observing that Mr. Karti had not joined the investigation in the case.