NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday morning raided multiple premises belonging to Karti Chidambaram, son of senior Congress leader and former Union minister P Chidambaram, including a house in Jor Bagh here. Simultaneous raids were conducted in connection with its money laundering probe in the Aircel-Maxis deal and INX media bribery cases, in Chennai.
On Thursday, the ED had issued fresh summons to Karti after he skipped his appearance before it in connection with the INX Media money laundering case probe. According to sources, Karti has been summoned by the ED on January 16 to join the probe. Sources confirmed that the raids started around 7:30 a.m. and ended around 11 a.m.
P Chidambaram termed the ED raids a “comedy of errors” and claimed the officers were left “embarrassed” as they could not find anything. “They searched premises in Chennai again but in a comedy of errors they came to search my premises in Jor Bagh. 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,” P Chidambaram told reporters.
“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,” he added.
The former finance minister said that 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”.
The central probe agency had, on December 1 last year, conducted similar searches on the premises of a relative of Karti and others in this case. The ED case pertains to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board approval granted in 2006 by P Chidambaram, the then finance minister.