Delhi HC adjourns hearing on Karti Chidambaram's anticipatory bail plea

New Delhi, June 15

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday adjourned the hearing on anticipatory bail plea moved by Congress MP Karti Chidambaram to June 24, in the alleged money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) linked to the allotment of visas to Chinese nationals in 2011.

During the course of the hearing, the court was apprised that his counsel, senior advocate Kapil Sibal is down with Covid-19 and accordingly the matter was posted to next Friday (June 24).

Karti, the son of senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, knocked the doors of the high court following the dismissal of his anticipatory bail plea by a lower court.

On June 3, the court of special CBI judge M.K. Nagpal had denied the anticipatory bail applications moved by Karti and other accused persons in the case, including the Congress MP's chartered accountant, S. Bhaskar Raman, and Vikas Makharia, the associate vice-president of thermal power plant Talwandi Sabo Power.

In the last hearing, senior advocate Kapil Sibal had argued that the alleged transaction was from 2011 and the ED registered the case after the lapse of a long time, pointing out that there was no investigation in all these years.

The counsel also argued that the value of the alleged transaction was Rs 50 lakh, which was less than Rs 1 crore, and in view of this fact, he should be granted bail.

According to the FIR, the Mansa-based Talwandi Sabo Power Ltd took the help of a middleman and allegedly paid Rs 50 lakh to get visas issued for Chinese nationals to complete a project before deadline.

"The payment of the said bribe was routed from the Mansa-based private company to a private person in Chennai and his close associate through a Mumbai-based company as payment of false invoice raised for consultancy and out of pocket expenses for Chinese visa related works," the FIR read.