Indrani Mukerjea claims to have paid $5 million to P Chidambaram, son Karti in bribe, says CBI chargesheet

Agencies
October 19, 2019

New Delhi, Oct 19: Indrani Mukerjea has claimed to have paid a bribe of US $5 million to former Finance Minister and Congress leader P. Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram through offshore payments in Singapore, Mauritius, Bermuda, the UK and Switzerland, the Central Bureau of Investigation stated in the chargesheet filed in a special court on Friday in the INX Media case.

The CBI also stated that it is awaiting response to its Letters Rogatory (formal request to a foreign court for judicial assistance) sent to five countries.

The agency filed a chargesheet against four entities and ten people under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery), 471 (signing a forged document as genuine) of Indian Penal Code and Section 9 (taking gratification, for exercise of personal influence with public servant), 13(1)(d) (abusing one’s position as a public servant) of 13(2) (public servant who commits criminal misconduct) of Prevention of Corruption Act.

The four entities charged are INX Media Private Limited (currently 9X Media Private Limited), INX News Private Limited (Direct News), Chess Management Services Private Limited and Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited (ASCPL).

The agency has charged P Chidambaram, then finance minister, his son Karti P Chidambaram, Ajeet Kumar Dungdung, the then section officer of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) unit at Ministry of Finance, Rabindra Prasad, then under secretary at FIPB unit, Pradeep Kumar Bagga, then officer on special duty at Department of Economic Affairs, Prabodh Saxena, then director FIPB, Anup K Pujari, then Joint Secretary (Foreign Trade) Department of Economic Affairs, Sindhushree Khullar, then additional secretary, S Bhaskararaman, Chartered Accountant, and Peter Mukherjea, then director INX Media Limited.

The CBI has made Indrani Mukerjea, who is currently in jail in Mumbai in connection with the murder of her daughter Sheena Bora, approver in the case. She in her statement to CBI also stated that a meeting with P. Chidambaram to discuss the modalities of illegal gratification was held between March/April 2007.

The agency stated that CBI had registered a case in May 2017 to investigate corruption in INX Media Private Limited which had received foreign investment Rs 403.07 crore against approved foreign direct investment (FDI) of Rs 4.62 crore.

Further, this company illegally invested Rs 40.91 crore in its sister concern INX News Pvt Limited from the received FDI amount without approval from FIPB in violation of provisions of Foreign Exchange Maintenance Act.

During investigation, it was found that Indrani and Peter, directors of INX Media Private Limited, entered into a criminal conspiracy with the then finance minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram (the then director Chess Management Services Pvt Limited) and the then public servants of FIPB unit, Department of Economic Affairs for getting the issue settled without any penal action against them.

“This caused undue pecuniary advantage to the companies concerned in terms of possible penalty under FEMA which could have been up to three times the total amount received,” said a senior CBI officer.

The chargesheet stated that Karti had floated a front company, ASCPL, for receiving illegal payoffs in the guise of various consultancies and other fees and payments.INX Media had also made a payment of Rs 9.96 lakh into the account of ASCPL.

“An illegal payoff without delivering any service,” said CBI adding that further probe into the matter is on.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) too had filed a money laundering case against Chidambaram in this regard in 2017. In the case, a Delhi court on Thursday sent P. Chidambaram to custodial interrogation by the Enforcement Directorate till October 24.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
June 22,2020

New Delhi, Jun 22: With an increase of 14,821 new cases and 445 deaths, India's COVID-19 count reached 4,25,282 on Monday.

According to the latest update by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), 13,699 deaths have been recorded due to the infection so far in the country.

The rise in confirmed cases today is lower than the highest spike of 15 thousand plus cases registered on Sunday.

The count includes 1,74,387 active cases, and 2,37,196 cured/discharged/migrated patients.

Maharashtra with 1,32,075 confirmed cases remains the worst-affected by the infection so far in the country. The state's count includes 60,161 active, 65,744 cured, discharged patients while 6,170 deaths have been reported due to the infection so far.

Meanwhile, the national capital today became the second-worst affected region in the country with the number of confirmed cases in Delhi reaching 59,746 as opposed to Tamil Nadu's 59,377 cases.

While 2,175 deaths have been reported in Delhi due to the infection so far, the toll in Tamil Nadu stands at 757.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
July 16,2020

Mumbai, Jul 16: Poet-activist Varavara Rao has tested positive for Covid-19. The 80-year old, named as accused in the Elgar Parishad case, was shifted to state-run JJ Hospital from Taloja central jail where he was lodged after he complained of dizziness. The hospital conducted tests including one for Covid-19 the results for which confirmed that he is positive.

Dr Ranjit Mankeshwar, the dean of JJ Hospital said, “He has shown no symptoms of Covid-19 so far. He has no breathing difficulty and is stable. We will soon shift him to a Covid hospital.” Rao is likely to be shifted to St George hospital.

Last week, Rao’s family had held a press conference after receiving a call from him from prison. His family had then said that his condition was deteriorating and he should be provided immediate medical aid. He was earlier shifted to the hospital when he fell unconscious in jail in May but was discharged within three days. The family had said that he was not provided proper medical treatment.

Last month, a special court had rejected his interim bail plea where he had cited his susceptibility to the virus due to his age and other medical conditions. The court, however, had said the superintendent of prison has been directed to take appropriate measures in such cases where medical attention is required. Before he was shifted to the hospital on Tuesday, Rao was admitted to the hospital ward of the jail and as he had been unable to do basic chores without depending on other inmates.

An appeal against the special court’s order is pending before the Bombay High Court. The plea is likely to be heard tomorrow.

Comments

Naresh
 - 
Thursday, 16 Jul 2020

Real criminals got bail or they r free from jail becoz of corona. Varavara rao and other innocents under custody.

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
March 6,2020

Mumbai, Mar 6; The Indian equity indices slumped on Friday morning, with the BSE Sensex falling over 1,450 points

The slump across the sectoral indices was led by the finance and banking stocks as the Reserve Bank of India on Thursday superseded the board of directors of Yes Bank and placed it under moratorium.

Persistent fears of the coronavirus outbreak severely impacting global economy also weighed on the investor sentiments, analysts said.

At 9.36 a.m., the BSE Sensex trimmed some losses and was trading at 37,376.66, lower by 1,093.95 points or 2.84 per cent from the previous close of 38,470.61

So far, the index has touched an intra-day low of 37,011.09, falling by 1,459.52 points.

It had opened at the intra-day high of 37,613.96.

The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange was trading at 10,938.75, lower by 330.25 or 2.93 per cent from its previous close.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.