Former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s plea on Wednesday to protect him from arrest in the INX Media case got tangled in the nitty-gritty of filing procedure in the Supreme Court and failed to reach the judges on time for a hearing even as the CBI and Enforcement Directorate are looking for him.
The day saw senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Salman Khurshid and Vivek Tankha engage in dogged pursuit to have the case listed before a Bench.
Mr. Tankha told The Hindu that it has been orally conveyed to them by the apex court Registry that the case would be listed on August 23 (Friday) before an appropriate Bench.
“We want a hearing. My client is not running away. A lookout notice has been issued against him. It is painful,” said Mr. Sibal, at one point expressing his exasperation with the procedure.
Mr. Sibal and his team waited expectantly to catch the attention of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, who was at the head of a Constitution Bench rising for the day at 4 p.m. after hearing the Ayodhya appeals. They expected him to address them before leaving the courtroom. But he left without a word.
The series of events began with Mr. Sibal making an oral mention before Justice Ramana at 10.30 a.m. He fervently sought an urgent hearing of Mr. Chidambaram's appeal against the dismissal of his anticipatory bail plea by the Delhi High Court on Tuesday in the INX Media corruption and money laundering case.
“Please give him [Mr. Chidambaram] the relief of protection from arrest. If he is arrested, this entire petition for anticipatory bail becomes infructuous,” Mr. Sibal urged.
The mentioning was made before Justice Ramana, the third most senior judge of the apex court, as Chief Justice Gogoi and Justice S.A. Bobde, the second most senior judge, were both part of the Ayodhya Bench.
But Justice Ramana was non-committal. He simply told the lawyers that the case file would be placed before the Chief Justice. It was the prerogative of the CJI, as master of roster, to decide the time of the hearing and appropriate Bench for the case.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for the CBI, intervened to say that the INX Media case involved “money laundering of monumental magnitude.”
Mr. Sibal and his team left Justice Ramana’s court to immediately troop into the CJI court next door where the Ayodhya Bench was about to assemble. However, when the judges sat for the day, the legal team, after a few moments of taut silence, inexplicably withdrew from the courtroom without mentioning the case.
By afternoon, after a closed-door huddle in the Supreme Court consultation rooms, Mr. Sibal and his team were back in Justice Ramana's court room at 2 p.m.
Mr. Sibal told the judge that the case was yet to be listed.
‘Petition has some defects’
Justice Ramana summoned the Listing Registrar to court and the latter said the petition had some defects, which have been just cleared. The petition would be sent to the CJI's office for listing before a Bench.
“The CJI is on the Ayodhya Bench, which will rise only at 4 p.m. That means it will not be heard today...” Mr. Sibal said.
“Usually we send for listing only in the evenings, in your case we had done it immediately in the morning. Registry is doing its work. We cannot hear until case is listed,” Justice Ramana replied.
The judge cut short Mr. Sibal, who referred to an unlisted case recently heard by the Supreme Court, with a simple “Sorry, Mr. Sibal. That is all we can do”.
CBI files caveat
Meanwhile, the CBI has filed a caveat to ensure that no order would be passed by the court without first hearing it.
In a 24-page order on Tuesday, Delhi High Court Judge Justice Sunil Gaur declared Mr. Chidambaram as the “kingpin” or the “key conspirator in the case”.
The order said the INX Media case was a “classic case of money laundering”.
The case relates to a First Information Report (FIR) registered by the CBI on May 15, 2017 against alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance provided to INX Media for receiving overseas funds to the tune of ₹305 crore in 2007 when Mr. Chidambaram was Finance Minister.
Later, in 2018, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) lodged a money laundering case in this regard.
Clubbing of cases
The High Court vehemently dismissed Mr. Chidambaram's claim that the case has nothing to do with money laundering. In fact, the Tuesday High Court order clubs the INX Media case with the Aircel Maxis’, saying the “money laundering involved in this INX Media scam is ₹305 crore and Aircel-Maxis scandal is ₹3,500 crore”.
In his appeal before the apex court, Mr. Chidambaram argued that “none of the three grounds to deny bail were made out: there is no allegation that the petitioner [Mr. Chidambaram] is likely to flee justice; or that the petitioner is likely to influence the witnesses; or that the petitioner is likely to tamper with the evidence”.
Mr. Chidambaram said he was summoned only once on June 6, 2018 in the case. “He had duly appeared and answered all questions, and no summons was issued thereafter,” the petition said.
“The High Court failed to appreciate that it is the case of the Petitioner that the FIR was baseless, politically motivated and an act of vendetta against the Petitioner [and his son Karti Chidambaram] because the Petitioner is a vocal critic and opponent of the present Central Government both inside Parliament and outside. The Petitioner is a sitting Member of the Rajya Sabha,” the plea said.
It contended that the CBI was learned to have sought sanction to prosecute Mr. Chidambaram on January 21, 2019. It could be thus inferred that the investigation into the case was over. If the probe was completed without the need for arresting him, why should they suddenly need to arrest him now, it asked.
The allegations pertained to official acts done 11 years ago. “All actions are recorded in the files. All files and documents are in the custody of the CBI. There is nothing to be recovered from the petitioner,” it. There had been no instance of him tampering with the evidence. No official had been arrested in the case. The High Court had granted his son bail. It was unjust to single him out to deny bail.
The petition submitted that the High Court order referred to transactions and private companies that had nothing to do with INX Media or FIPB approvals obtained in 2007-08.
Finally, the Justice Gaur spent considerable space to Mr. Karti Chidambaram that had nothing to do with the anticipatory bail application of Mr. Chidambaram, the plea said. It also stated that the order was largely a “cut and paste” of a note given by the Centre to the High Court.
