New Delhi: Former finance minister P Chidambaram on Thursday moved the Supreme Court seeking bail in the INX Media corruption case. The matter was brought before the top court just a few days after the Delhi High Court denied him bail on the grounds that he might influence witnesses.
Senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, who is representing Chidambaram, mentioned the matter before a bench consisting of Justices NV Ramana, Sanjiv Khanna, and Krishna Murari. The bench directed that the filed be placed before CJI Ranjan Gogoi, who will take a call on the listing of the matter.
The former Union minister, arrested on August 21 by the CBI from his Jor Bagh residence, is in Tihar Jail under judicial custody till October 3.
The arrest came after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had registered an FIR on May 15, 2017, alleging irregularities in the FIPB clearance granted to the INX Media group for receiving overseas funds of Rs 305 crore in 2007 during Chidambaram's tenure as the finance minister.
Thereafter, the ED lodged a money laundering case in this regard in 2017. The CBI has opposed his bail petition as it described the alleged crime as the "gravest case of economic offences".
The Congress, however, termed the former Union minister’s arrest a “political witch-hunt”, with several party leaders — interim chief Sonia Gandhi, former prime minister Manmohan Singh and senior colleagues like Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ahmed Patel — paying him a visit in jail.
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