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Karti Chidambaram, 46, son of P Chidambaram, former Finance Minister, was arrested by the CBI on Wednesday morning at the Chennai airport in connection with the INX Media money-laundering case.
In 2007, Mumbai-based INX Media, which was owned by Peter and Indrani Mukerjea , received a foreign investment of ₹305 crore without proper clearance from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).
According to the CBI, , the FIPB norms allowed INX Media to receive only ₹4.62 crore, but the firm violated the norms and raised foreign direct investments worth ₹305 crore by issuing shares at a premium of more than ₹800 per share to foreign investors.
It also made downstream investments in INX News without FIPB approval.
According to the CBI FIR, when clarification was sought on the violations, INX Media entered into a criminal conspiracy with Karti to get the FDI issue resolved amicably by influencing public servants at the Ministry of Finance by virtue of his relationship with then Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
The FIR was filed in May 2017 based on the information provided by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which had registered a case against INX Media.
It is alleged that Karti had received about ₹3.5 crore from the Mukerjeas, owners of INX Media.
INX was reported to have made payments to Advantage Strategic Consulting (Advantage India) and its subsidiary, Advantage Singapore, of which Karti had indirect control, according to the FIR.
Invoices amounting to ₹3.5 crore were raised in the name of other companies in which he had “sustainable interests directly or indirectly”.
While these invoices were falsely raised for creation or acquisition of media content and market research, INX Group records clearly mention a ₹10-lakh payment to ASCPL for “management consultancy charges towards FIPB notification and clarification”.
Karti and a few others were questioned by the CBI in August 2017 and again last month.
Last week, Karti moved the Supreme Court for a stay on the summons issued by the ED, but the court denied a stay.
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