Chidambaram appears before ED in Aircel-Maxis PMLA case

Team Udayavani, Jun 5, 2018, 11:48 AM IST

New Delhi: Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram today appeared before the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the Aircel-Maxis money laundering case. The senior Congress leader arrived at the agency’s headquarter annexe office here at about 10:58 AM and was accompanied by a lawyer.

The agency had issued a fresh summon to him yesterday to appear before the investigating officer of the case. The agency is expected to record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Chidambaram’s role has come under the scanner in the Rs 3,500 crore Aircel-Maxis deal in which the ED has already questioned his son, Karti.

The former finance minister, also the ex-home minister, had last week approached the court of Special Judge O P Saini seeking relief from arrest by the ED in this case.  The same court today directed ED not to take any coercive action or arrest him till July 10 in connection with this case. The ED had first asked him to appear before it on May 30 and on the the same day Chidambaram knocked on the court’s door.

The court, in its order on May 30, had noted that Chidambaram has undertaken to comply with the summons issued by the ED while saying he apprehended his arrest by the agency. The Aircel-Maxis cases pertains to grant of Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance to firm M/S Global Communication Holding Services Ltd in 2006 for investment in Aircel.

The Supreme Court had on March 12 directed investigating agencies — the CBI and the ED — to complete their probe into the 2G spectrum allocation cases, including the Aircel Maxis alleged money laundering case, in six months.

The agency had said FIPB approval in the Aircel-Maxis FDI case was granted in March 2006 by Chidambaram even though he was competent to accord approval on project proposals only up to Rs 600 crore and beyond that it required the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA).

The ED is investigating “the circumstances of the FIPB approval granted (in 2006) by the then finance minister.”  “In the instant case, the approval for FDI of 800 million USD (over Rs 3,500 crore) was sought. Hence, the CCEA was competent to grant the approval.”  “However, the approval was not obtained from the CCEA,” the ED had alleged.

The agency said its probe revealed that the case of the said FDI was “wrongly projected as an investment of Rs 180 crore so that it need not be sent to the CCEA to avoid a detailed scrutiny.”  The ED is probing the Aircel-Maxis deal under the PMLA after taking cognisance of a 2011 CBI FIR in the case.

The senior Chidambaram had earlier described the ED action in this case as a “crazy mixture of falsehoods and conjectures” and said that the charge sheet filed by probe agencies had been rejected by the court.

However, the agencies have maintained that the FIR in the case has not been quashed. In September last year, the ED had attached assets worth Rs 1.16 crore of Karti and a firm allegedly linked to him in connection with this case.