India
The ED had registered a PMLA case in this deal case on the basis of a CBI FIR and had alleged that irregularities took place in the FIPB clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007 when Karti's father P Chidambaram was the Union finance minister
New Delhi: The son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, Karti Chidambaram, has called the action of attaching his assets worth Rs 54 crore in the INX Media money laundering case by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as "bizarre and outlandish".
The properties are spread across India, UK and Spain.
1. Agricultural land and bungalow in Kodaikanal and Ooty in Tamil Nadu.
2. A Rs 16 crore flat in south Delhi's Jorbagh which is in the name of Karti and his mother Nalini. Karti, the ED said, has a 50% share in this property.
3. A Rs 8.67 crore cottage in UK and house in Somerset.
4. A tennis club valued at over Rs 14.57 crore located in Barcelona, Spain.
5. Fixed Deposits worth Rs 90 lakh, kept in a bank in Chennai, in the name of Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited (ASCPL).
The assets are in the name of Karti and ASCPL, the firm allegedly linked to him, the central probe agency said.
Karti took to Twitter to react to this order.
"A bizarre and outlandish provisional attachment order which is not based on law of facts but on crazy conjectures. This is meant only to grab headlines,” he tweeted from his official twitter handle.
He also said that he will be approaching the appropriate legal forum.
"The attached assets collectively amount to Rs 54 crore," the ED statement said.
Officials said they will get issued Letters Rogatories (judicial requests) from a competent court for legal formalisation of the attachment of the foreign assets after they were provisionally attached on Thursday under section 5 of the PMLA.
The ED had registered a PMLA case in this deal case on the basis of a CBI FIR and had alleged that irregularities took place in the FIPB clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007 when his father P Chidambaram was the Union finance minister.
The agency had grilled Karti in this case in the past.
It had registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), the ED's equivalent of a police FIR, against the accused named in a CBI complaint, including Karti, INX Media and its directors Peter and Indrani Mukerjea.
With inputs from PTI
Read Exclusive COVID-19 Coronavirus News updates, at MyNation.