On the 26th of August, the Supreme Court (SC,) refused to hear the plea of P. Chidambaram, the former Finance Minister of India, against the Delhi High Court for dismissing his anticipatory bail.
Apart from the case against the Delhi High Court, the SC also heard a petition against the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI.)
However, the case was adjourned to 12:00 P.M., on the 27th of August. A bench comprising R. Banumathi and A.S. Boppana heard both the petitions filed by Chidambaram.
After the SC denied to hear the plea of anticipatory bail, Chidambaram accused the ED and said the agency leaked the documents of charges against him to the media. He further said the ED also submitted the documents of the Delhi High Court, based on which, the SC refused to hear his plea.
However, the ED denied Chidambaram’s allegations and said, “We didn’t leak it. He is making it political. We have given it to the petitioner (Chidambaram.)”
Before concluding today’s hearing, the SC said the arrest protection granted to Chidambaram will remain valid till the next hearing.
As of now, Chidambaram is in the custody of the CBI for interrogation pertaining to the 2007 INX Media money laundering case.
Kapil Sibal, the lawyer of Chidambaram, criticised the judgement of the Delhi High Court and the ED for providing fabricated documents. He said, “Paragraphs in the High Court judgement were a verbatim copy of the CBI/ Enforcement Directorate note, comma by comma, full stop by full stop, word by word, sentence by sentence, the chart. Their note becomes findings of the court. Where is the application of mind by the judge?”
The CBI and the ED are investigating the INX Media case since 2015. Both the agencies claim they have enough evidence against P. Chidambaram in the case, which will only be presented after proper interrogation.
The ED also said since the interrogation started for the case, Chidambaram is escaping the interrogations and is not cooperating with the CBI and ED officials.
On the 26th of August, after the SC hearing, the CBI took Chidambaram to a CBI Special Court and also demanded an extension of remand custody to complete the interrogation.
The SC postponed the hearing to the 27th of August.
Stay tuned for further updates.
