Chidambaram gets bail, walks out of Tihar prison

After 105 days in custody, former Union finance minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday night walked out of Tihar jail hours after the Supreme Court granted him bail in a money laundering case linked to the INX Media with some conditions like restraining the senior Congress leader from talking to the media about the case.

Chidambaram, 74, stepped out of Gate no 3 of the prison at 8.10 pm to a rapturous welcome by hundreds of Congress supporters. His son Karti was on hand to receive the Congress veteran.

Dressed in his trademark long-sleeved white shirt and dhoti, the former union minister, whose custody entered the 106th day on Wednesday with most of the time spent behind bars, was surrounded by a posse of newsmen and photographers before he was taken in a car to his Jor Bagh home.

Asked to comment on his release, a calm and composed Chidambaram, a Rajya Sabha MP, said he cannot comment on the case and will obey the Supreme Court order but hastened to forcefully add that not a single charge has been framed against him.

"The fact is that after 106 days of pre-trial incarceration there is not a single charge framed against me as I speak now," said Chidambaram, who is expected to attend the Rajya Sabha proceedings on Thursday. The Congress leader said he will talk more on Thursday.

Chidambaram has been in the custody of the Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI), the Enforcement Directorate(ED) and in Tihar jail since his dramatic arrest by the CBI sleuths from his Jor Bagh home in the national capital on the night of August 21. While the CBi is probing the corruption case linked to the INX Media, the ED is investigating the money laundering case.

"I am very happy that my father is coming home. It has been a long wait, it has been an unwanted incarceration. I am very grateful that the Supreme Court has given him bail," Karti told reporters.

The relief for Chidambaram triggered a political slugfest with the Congress welcoming it as truth prevailing at last and that his incarceration was "vengeful and vindictive" while the BJP derided the party for "celebrating corruption". The BJP also sarcastically said finally Chidambaram too joins the long list of OOBC(Out On Bail Club)
"Classic case of @INCIndia 'Celebrating Corruption'!!