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This article is written by Srestha Nandy, from IMS Unison University, Dehradun. This is an exhaustive article which deals with the detailed analysis of the INX Media case.

Introduction 

The famous Sheena Bora murder case has been a bombshell occurrence that disclosed many insights where the accused was the mother of the deceased. Indrani Mukerjea, who introduced her daughter as her sister, is also a part of a money laundering case where her company “9X Media Company” was a leading factor. This company was named INX Media earlier. This company was founded by Indrani Mukerjea along with her husband Peter Mukerjea in 2007. This case is a cluster of shocking events, where individuals like P Chidambaram and Karti Chidambaram are prime offenders.

Here, the former being the member of Rajya Sabha for the state of Maharastra while Karti Chidambaram is a member of Lok Sabha for the constituency of Shivaganga of Tamil Nadu. This case significantly highlights the reality of Indian politics, where it shows the apprehension of the abuse of the political powers by those individuals who won the seat through the elections or in other words by the hope of thousands of people, who voted for them, for a better future. Our Indian Legal system’s one negative aspect, where if the powers are in the good hands, it could aid the existing gaps of the running system, but if not, then it results in such cases like INX Media Case.  

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A brief background of the INX Media case 

Peter Mukherjea and his second wife Indrani Mukerjea decided to start an organization in the year 2006 in the field of media. For this, they required a huge amount of capital, of course, which they all alone could not afford. So the provision of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) opted where the funds could be raised by the foreign companies’ investment in their company. Here the company is ‘INX Media.’ As this was a media company, the founders needed to follow the approved route of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) where they needed to obtain the permission of the Government before raising the funds from foreign companies. There also exists another way which is known to be an automatic route where there is no need of obtaining any permission, but due to security purposes FDI for media, defence and banking seeks mandatory permissions from the government. This permission is to be granted by the board made by the government known as the ‘Foreign Investment Promotion Board.’ FIPB was previously constituted under PMO post-liberalization, later in 2003, it was transferred to the Department of Economic Affairs under the Ministry of Finance. Currently, FIPB has been replaced in 2017. 

Accordingly, the founders requested the permission of FDI from FIPB at that time. The permission was granted but with two conditions. The first one states that the maximum limit for allocating funds will be 4.62 Crore rupees and also along with this the board also restricted them for downstream investment, as they mentioned that they will invest 26% of the FDI into another company ‘INX News Private Limited’ which is owned by them only. 

What they did?

After the permission was granted, for the collection of funds through FDI to a limited amount which was Rs. 4.62 Crore, the amount of Rs. 305 crore was collected and to which no records and reasonable grounds were provided behind this act. This thing got disclosed, when CBI investigated after they were asked by the Income Tax Department in the year 2008. Also, another violation of the FIPB regulation was that the founders did invest 26% as a downstream investment to their other company, 9X News which was restricted by the FIPB during the granting of permission favouring FDI. 

To this, the couple made another way out to escape this above allegation. They contacted Karti Chidambaram, who was the director of a company named Chess Management Service Limited and made an agreement of consultancy services from this company for INX Media. Keeping this aside, Karti Chidambaram was the son of P Chidambaram, who was the Union Finance Minister at that time. This was done to get into the circle of the political party to suppress the grave allegation and to gain national support for facing charges given by the investigation authority. Also, another point to be noted is that the couple chose these two people because they were having powerful positions and at that time, FIPB was under the Ministry of Finance. So over time an amount of Rs. 10 lakh was transferred to the account of another company named ‘Advantage Strategic Consultant Limited’ to hide the identity of Karti Chidambaram. 

Eventually, FIPB further didn’t give any order to continue investigation of previous money laundering of 305 Crore rupees, upon that FIPB themselves asked the couple to apply for a fresh proposal for the downstream investment, and this time it was approved which was earlier got rejected. FIPB did this by abiding by P Chidambaram’s instructions, who was the Finance Minister. Here a major point to be noted is that this proposal was granted for the downstream investment, which is retrospective in nature, whereas violation has been already done earlier when they had no permission for downstream investment for that they should be punished, but nothing happened. Here the Finance Ministry officials not just continued to grant undue favors to INX Media but also ignored the request from the Revenue Department to investigate the matter. This act was a grave misuse of power by the position holders. 

What happened next?

Eventually, the trouble for the couple got settled, for some time. But in the year, another turning point approached where in May 2017 the Enforcement Directorate filed a case of money laundering against Karti Chidambaram, INX Media, and their directors. Subsequently, the CBI also filed a case against Karti Chidambaram. The two agencies then carried out several raids on offices and residences owned by the Chidambaram and questioned Karti Chidambaram several times. 

A lookout notice, which alerts airports to stop a passenger from travelling abroad, was also issued against Karti Chidambaram, as the agencies feared he would attempt to close his foreign bank accounts where they suspected he had parked their money. CBI registered cases under Section 120-B, and 420 of the Indian Penal Code, Section 8, 13(2), and 13(1) of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 against all the accused.

In January, 2018, Karti Chidambaram was arrested by CBI at Chennai airport and was taken to Delhi. He was kept in CBI custody for 5 days. On March 12 Karti was sent to 12 days judicial custody till March 24. But on March 23, the High Court granted bail to Karti Chidambaram. With all these happening, P Chidambaram suspected that he might get arrested, to save himself, he pleaded for anticipatory bail from the High Court several times, but the Apex court rejected the plea and said that this pre-arrest bail would hamper the investigation. To this P Chidambaram was sent to judicial custody till 19th September as he was arrested on August 21, 2019, by CBI. After a lot of enquiry during his stay in custody, he was granted bail.   

Highlighting the observations made by the Delhi High Court 

The Delhi High Court has passed the order to produce all the documents and the accused which has once been tried in the trial court. To this, the CBI claimed that there is no power to claim for the documents which have not been filed. Here the CBI argues that it is the responsibility of the prosecution to prove the allegation against the accused, where the accused need to remain silent on the documents provided by the prosecution. After the arrest of Karti Chidambaram, he pleaded for bail, where the High Court granted interim relief to him after setting several restrictions to him like he cannot leave the country and his passport has been seized. 

As Karti Chidambaram was a resident of Chennai and an FIR was lodged in Delhi, he raised the question of where the trial shall proceed. The Supreme Court agreed to hear his plea, where he had filed a fresh plea challenging the summons by the Enforcement Directorate. Before this, Karti Chidambaram had filed a caveat to the Supreme Court as he suspected that the Enforcement Directorate might challenge the interim relief given to Karti Chidambaram, by the High Court. Meanwhile, the court interrogated Indrani Mukerjea as she provided some statements of bribing Karti to this CBI filed to produce her in front of the magistrate in order to record her statement.

The course of law in the case – an insight 

In this aspect, it is clear that due to bona fide intentions, the power and the provisions have been misused, though there were continued efforts by the investigating authority to disclose all the facts, as P Chidambaram being the Finance Minister, aided this malpractice. Also, another aspect was that as both father and son were involved in the Parliament, one in Rajya Sabha and the other in Lok Sabha got the privileges that helped them to escape from the allegations. The poor aspect of our legislation is that they give place to such individuals who on reaching certain positions forget to respect their job and become selfish.

Even after having sufficient evidence the father and son are not in custody and every time they dig out some escape plan even due to lack of proper execution, the opposition fails to challenge. From the evidence, it is clear that it is a pure money laundering case but the judiciary still wants more to give his verdict. Here lie the loopholes of the Indian Laws, of which these offenders are taking advantage. From the news, it has been true that the CBI has given their full-fledged efforts to disclose the offences, but they only have the power to bring facts and evidence in front, but it is the duty of the court to bring an end to the matter with an appropriate judgement. This case came to light in the year 2008, and it is 2021 still there is no punishment declared, except only a few days of judicial custody.   

The current scenario 

The Delhi High Court summoned P Chidambaram and Karti Chidambaram in April, 2021. But unfortunately, the Delhi High Court exempted both of them from personal appearance as there was an application moved by their lawyer stating that the accused is engaged with the election campaign in Tamil Nadu. The court order for the next hearing on 17th April, 2021. 

On 16th the court marked the virtual attendance of both father and son, P Chidambaram and Karti Chidambaram. But the court adjourned the case till 4th May, 2021 as Special Judge M K Nagpal was on leave, who was hearing the matter before also. 

Latest update on 18th May, 2021 given by the Delhi High Court, that Justice Suresh Kumar Kait, had issued notice and sought the responses on the CBI’s plea on challenging the order of producing the documents of the accused by the trial court. 

Conclusion

Presently due to the election and pandemic situation, our Judiciary has to delay its proceedings, as the pandemic is a national crisis and other factors such as a fall in the economy have raised other troubles which lead to this slowdown. Keeping this aside, our Delhi High Court is taking concern of the case with virtual hearing, as the accused parties are members of Parliament so they do have other responsibilities for the nation, especially in this pandemic situation, this cannot be ignored. So with time, justice will prevail and the accused will get his punishment.   

References 

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