INX Media case: Court remands Karti to one day CBI custody

Karti Chidambaram, arrested in connection with the probe into the INX Media case, was today remanded to one-day CBI custody by a Delhi Court.
46-year-old Karti, son of former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, was produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Sumeet Anand and the CBI sought his custodial interrogation for 15 days claiming that he was not cooperating in the probe.
The duty magistrate remanded him to one-day CBI custody and asked the agency to produce Karti before the concerned judge tomorrow.
When Karti was brought to the Patiala House district court premises and was taken to the court room, he told the waiting scribes, "It is absolutely a political vendetta. I will be vindicated".

In its remand application filed in the court, the CBI claimed that sustained interrogation of Karti was needed to unearth the "total conspiracy" hatched in the case and also to find out the details of overseas payments allegedly received by him from INX Media as a "quid pro quo".
"Thus, Karti Chidambaram needs to be subjected to sustained interrogation for unearthing the total conspiracy hatched in the case and also to find out the details of overseas payments received by him from INX Media as a quid pro quo for influence exercised by him over the public servants to scuttle the punitive action required to be taken against M/S INX Media (P) Ltd for the illegal acts of receiving excess investment than the approved FDI and also for making of downstream investment without the FIPB approval. For this purpose, his police custody remand for a period of 15 days is considered essential," the CBI said in the court.

At the outset, the court allowed the request of Karti's lawyers to have an interaction with the accused inside the court room for 10 minutes, after which the proceedings resumed.

Earlier in the day, Karti was taken into custody by a team of CBI officials at the Chennai airport on his return from the United Kingdom.
The CBI had lodged an FIR on May 15 last year alleging irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007 when P Chidambaram was the Union finance minister.

The agency alleged that Karti had received funds to the tune of Rs 10 lakh in the case.
It had claimed that Karti had also received money from INX Media to scuttle a tax probe. The firm was owned at the time by Peter and Indrani Mukerjea, who are currently in jail on charges of allegedly murdering Indrani's daughter Sheena Bora.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has also registered a money laundering case in the INX Media matter.