On Saturday, former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram described the raids by the Enforcement Directorate as a comedy of errors. Chidambaram made this statement after the ED raided his residence in connection with the ongoing money laundering case against his son Karti Chidambaram. The former minister stated the raids ended with the officers leaving embarrassed and apologetic after not finding anything to incriminate Kartu.
The Enforcement Directorate raided Karti Chidambaram’s premises in Delhi and Chennai. The raids began at 7:30 A.M., at five separate locations in the two cities. The ED has also issued fresh summons to Karti Chidambaram for the 16th of January. Karti had failed to appear before in connection with the money laundering case.
Chidambaram was quoted saying, “They have searched premises in Chennai again, but in a comedy of errors they came to search my premises in Jor Bagh.” He further stated, “Officers told me that they believed that Karti was an occupant of the house. I told them he is a resident of Chennai and I am the occupant of this house.”
“Since they had the search warrant, I did not raise any objections to the search, but I said I will record my protest that there is no FIR in respect of the scheduled crime registered by any investigating agency, including the CBI. There are obviously no proceeds of crime and the ED has no jurisdiction under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act,” Chidambaram said. The former Finance Minister explained the ED officials searched the place, “including the kitchen and the bathroom and obviously they found nothing. They were embarrassed and apologetic that they found me as the occupant, but they had no option but to complete the search.”
Chidambaram further claimed, “Since they had to justify the search, they took some background papers related to a statement made by the government in Parliament in 2012-13. In Chennai also they found nothing, seized nothing.” The Congress leader also made a cheeky remark by saying, “I will compliment them [investigating agencies] if they are able to find anything [objectionable] in raids in future.”
The raids conducted today were not the first, last year in December the ED conducted raids in Chennai and Kolkata in the money laundering probe.
