Feb 07, 2019  Karti Chidambaram, son of former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday for recording his statement in. Huawei b683 port forward.

Karti Chidambaram, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram. (File) The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Karti Chidambaram, son of former finance minister, to travel abroad, but warned him against playing “around the law.” The apex court said it would be “forced to take steps” if he does not cooperate with the investigating agencies in the Aircel-Maxis and the INX Media cases. A Bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi directed Karti to be present before the Enforcement Directorate on March 5, 6, 7 and 12 for questioning in the two cases and also asked him to deposit `10 crore with the Supreme Court registry as a condition for travelling abroad. “You can go wherever you want to between February 10 to 26, you can do whatever you want, but don’t play around with the law. If there is an iota of non-cooperation, we will come down heavily,” the CJI said. Gogoi asked him to cooperate with the investigative agencies. “You have not co-operated.

We wanted to say a lot of things. We are not saying them right now.” It also asked Karti give an undertaking that he would return and cooperate with the investigation. Karti had sought permission to travel to France, Spain, Germany and the UK for the next few months for international tennis tournaments organised by ‘Totus Tennis Ltd’ having its registered office in the UK.

Karti said he was associated with tennis as a “former player, current administrator and entrepreneur”. Karti has been permitted to travel abroad by the top court on previous occasions. He is being questioned in connection with the INX Media corruption case lodged by the CBI involving alleged kickbacks paid by the media house for obtaining an FIPB clearance for receiving overseas funds to the tune of `305 crore in 2007 when his father was the Union finance minister in the -led UPA government. He is accused of having received `10 lakh in kickbacks to clear the foreign investment for INX Media, which was owned by Peter and Indrani Mukherjea. On Monday, the top court had asked the Enforcement Directorate to give dates as to when Karti would be required for questioning in India in the two cases. The CJI said, “We will ensure that he appears before you (ED) and he also goes for his tennis assignment No tennis for him if he evades He will go only when he presents himself before you.” Alleging that he had been “evasive and non-cooperative,” the probe agency had told the Bench that the Aircel-Maxis probe is getting “delayed” because of Karti ‘s frequent foreign travels.