On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court scheduled a hearing for August 18 to address Congress MP Karti P. Chidambaram’s request for anticipatory bail in connection with the suspected Chinese Visas fraud that the Enforcement Directorate is looking into.
When the attorney for the Enforcement Directorate (ED) informed the court that Additional Solicitor General SV Raju was unavailable, Justice Poonam A Bamba postponed the hearing on the plea. Additionally, the investigative agency verbally stated that it would keep its earlier promise to take no coercive action against Karti until the following date.
ED had verbally promised the high court on July 12 that no coercive measures would be employed against him until July 12.
Karti had turned to the High Court after the trial court on June 3 rejected his and two other peoples’ requests for anticipatory bail on the grounds that the offense was extremely serious.
In the alleged scam involving the granting of a visa to 263 Chinese nationals in 2011 while his father P Chidambaram was the home minister, the ED has filed a money laundering case against Karti and others.
According to the ED, the exact size or volume of the processed or laundered funds in the case has still to be determined throughout the investigation, and the Rs. 50 lakh bribe from the CBl case cannot be used as the foundation for the current case.
In accordance with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act’s (PMLA) requirements, the agency has filed its case after taking note of a recent first information report filed by the CBI in the same case.
The ED had challenged the anticipatory bail petition when the case was heard by the court last month during a break, arguing that Karti could not file the motion on the basis of a figment of his imagination that does not demonstrate any genuine fear of being arrested.
The application, according to the ED, is premature because neither the investigation into the matter nor Karti himself has been called in yet.
