The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is probing windfall profits made by Karti Chidambaram, the son of former finance minister P Chidambaram.
Karti Chidambaram was said to have made profits from a sale of shares. This was used to purchase properties worth Rs 54 crore, which the agency had attached last year.
Below are the details:
ED sources claimed that when former promoters of INX Media Peter and Indrani Mukherjea met Chidambaram in North Block, he asked them to keep his son’s business interests in mind. They met Chidambaram to ensure that the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approvals, to bring Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into their company, were fast tracked.
“ED identified payments of Rs 3.09 crore by Peter to ASCPL and associated entities controlled by Karti through manipulated debit notes. During the investigation, it was admitted that debit notes were raised on directions of Karti to show some transaction which in fact did not occur. These transfers have occurred during the time Chidambaram sanctioned FIPB approvals, so we are probing the contemporaneous nature of these transactions with the son while approvals were granted by the father,” said a senior ED official.
The official further said, “The money received by associated entities was channelled back into ASCPL. The funds received by ASCPL were invested and ASCPL also purchased shares of Vasan Healthcare. A part of these shares were sold at a profit of nearly Rs 41 crore. ASCPL also earned Rs 18.49 crore from sale of shares in another company for an amount of Rs 29.49 crore.”
Fixed deposits worth Rs 90 lakh in the name of ASCPL with DCB Bank, Nungambakkam branch, Karti’s share in Jor Bagh house, and Rs 9.23 crore in the name of Karti Chidambaram with Indian Overseas Bank, Nungambakkam branch, have also been attached.
Read: INX Media case: CBI starts questioning Chidambaram
Overseas properties
Apart from this, overseas assets in the Untied Kingdom (UK) - in Surridge farm, Bathealton- in the name of ASCPL Singapore and a tennis club as well as land located in Municipality of Gava province in Barcelona, Spain - in the name of Advantage Estrategia Esportiva SLU - have also been attached.
The shares of ASCPL were transferred on the name of Karti’s friends, who later relinquished the shares in a will transferring them to his daughter. There have been multiple such wills, claims ED, documents of which are in the agency’s custody, which will be submitted as proof in court of law to prosecute Chidambaram, the agency claimed.