Supreme Court challenging the order of the Delhi High Court by granting Bail to Karti Chidambaram. CBI claims it is “impermissible in law”

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court challenging the Delhi High Court order by granting bail to Karti Chidambaram, son of senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, in the INX Media case.

The CBI has claimed in its appeal that it was "impermissible in law" for the high court to grant Karti's bail plea when an application seeking a similar relief was still pending before the trial court.

The agency has also alleged that the high court had "erroneously" conducted a "detailed examination" of evidence on merits at the stage of bail which has seriously prejudiced the case of CBI.

"Further, the high court while granting bail (to Karti) failed to exercise its discretion in a judicious manner without ascertaining the nature of accusation, the nature of supporting evidence and the reasonable apprehension of tampering with the evidence in the present case," the CBI said in its appeal.

Karti was arrested from Chennai regarding an FIR lodged on May 15 last year, which had alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance given to INX Media for receiving funds of about Rs 305 crore from overseas in 2007 when his father P Chidambaram was the Union Finance Minister. Both Chidambaram and Karti have denied all allegations made by CBI, as well as the Enforcement Directorate. The CBI had initially alleged that Karti received Rs 10 lakh as bribe for facilitating the FIPB clearance to INX Media. It had later revised the figure to $1 million.

It referred to section 439 of the CrPC, which deals with the special powers of the high court of sessions court in regard to bail, and said that concurrent jurisdiction was to be exercised by high court only in "rare and exceptional circumstances and not in a routine manner".

"It is respectfully submitted that in the present case, no special and/or exceptional circumstances existed which warranted the exercise of concurrent jurisdiction by single judge of the High Court for granting bail to the respondent (Karti), suffers from patent and manifest error of law", it said.

"The impugned order of the High Court erroneously concluded that discrepancies have emerged in the statements of the witnesses under section 161 CrPC (examination of witnesses by police), the High Court unreasonably concludes that the statements of senior officers of FIPB under section 161 CrPC do not assign any specific role to the Respondent (Karti) in the alleged offence". Said the CBI.

It claimed that findings that the Chess Management Services and Advantage Strategic Consulting have an "intricate link" to Karti pointed towards larger conspiracy as alleged in the FIR.

The agency has alleged that while granting bail, the high court should have kept in mind the nature of accusations in the case, especially in light of economic offence which have deep-rooted conspiracies and involves huge loss of public funds.

"It is submitted that the High Court, in the present circumstances, after recording certain observations on the merits of the case, ought to have clarified that the said observations not affect the proceedings pending before any other Court of law," it said.