New Delhi: Karti Chidambaram, arrested in connection with the probe into the INX Media case, was on Wednesday remanded to one-day CBI custody by a Delhi Court.
Karti has been arrested based on the "confessional" statement recorded before a magistrate under 164 CrPC of INX Media directors Peter Mukerjea and wife Indrani.
In their statements, which is admissible as evidence in the court, the Mukerjeas had claimed to have paid close to $700,000 (Rs 3.10 crore) to Karti through subsidiaries abroad, for organizing clearance from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) to bring in foreign funds for their TV venture INX Media. The FIPB comes under the finance ministry, the charge of which was then with Karti's father and senior Congress politician P Chidambaram.
46-year-old Karti, son of former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, was produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Sumeet Anand and the CBI sought his custodial interrogation for 15 days claiming that he was not cooperating in the probe.
The duty magistrate remanded him to one-day CBI custody and asked the agency to produce Karti before the concerned judge on Thursday. When Karti was brought to the Patiala House district court premises and was taken to the courtroom, he told the waiting scribes, "It is absolutely a political vendetta. I will be vindicated".
In its remand application filed in the court, the CBI claimed that sustained interrogation of Karti was needed to unearth the "total conspiracy" hatched in the case and also to find out the details of overseas payments allegedly received by him from INX Media as a "quid pro quo".
At the outset, the court allowed the request of Karti's lawyers to have an interaction with the accused inside the courtroom for 10 minutes, after which the proceedings resumed.
Earlier in the day, Karti was taken into custody by a team of CBI officials at the Chennai airport on his return from the United Kingdom. See P6