Apex court directs Karti Chidambaram to appear before CBI on Aug 23

New Delhi, August 18 : The Supreme Court on Friday asked senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram’s son Karti Chidambaram to appear before the CBI on August 23 for interrogation in connection with a corruption case.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar, however, allowed him to have by his side a lawyer who would not be within hearing distance during his interrogation by the CBI.  The CBI will interrogate Karti in connection with alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds when his father was the Union Finance Minister in 2007. Karti alleged that he was being unnecessarily harassed and that the real target was his father. Senior counsel Gopal Subramanium told the top court on his behalf that it had become the fashion to target relatives of opposition politicians. But the court was not impressed. “Do you want to say you are so good that you don’t want to appear before the CBI?” the CJI commented. The court hinted that the agency could arrest him if it had evidence even as his counsel asserted that there was no evidence against him.