The judge of the special court for cases related to elected MPs and MLAs in Chennai, has dismissed a discharge petition filed by Congress Sivaganga MP Karti Chidambaram and his wife Srinidhi Chidambaram in a case relating to the alleged non-disclosure of income for the financial year 2015-16 and evasion of tax.
Officials had earlier alleged that Mr. Karti had received ₹6.38 crore in cash while his wife received ₹1.35 crore in cash during that financial year. The transaction has come to light when IT sleuths had conducted inquiries with employees of Agni Estates Foundation, the firm which purchased land near Muttukadu belonging to the Chidambaram family, according to sources.
On December 1, 2015, the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax officials, during a search on the premises of Advantage and Chess Global and other places with which Mr. Karti was associated, had seized electronic evidence which purportedly contained evidence on the money transfer in the case. The ED and IT department had submitted this to the court in December 2018 along with a printout of documents, which the Court had reviewed recently.
Judge D. Lingeswaran rejected the plea of the accused that hard drives cannot be admitted as evidence. He noted that it is clear that the hard drives in question were seized from Chess Global Advisory Services Services and the seized hard drives were sealed properly and they were under custody. So far there is no reason to believe that the incriminating contents were voluntarily inserted by the officers who seized it, the Judge said.
Judge D. Lingeswaran also said that the small note books seized from Agni Group showing alleged cash payments and also the sworn statements of its officials K. Narayanan and Jayaprakash recorded by Rohan Raj, Deputy Director of Income Tax (Investigation) and the complainant can be considered as evidence,
The judge dismissed the discharge petition stating that there are adequate grounds to presume the accused has committed offences. He directed them to appear on January 21.
