INX Media case: Chidambaram playing victim card, says ED

Appearing for the ED, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the bench of Justices R Banumathi and A S Bopanna, “A ghost is created playing (the) victim card.”

The bench is hearing Chidambaram’s plea seeking protection from arrest in the money laundering case, which is an offshoot of the INX-Media case being probed by CBI.

On Tuesday, Senior Counsel Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for Chidambaram, had told the court that the alleged offences for which he had been booked were not offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on the date on which they were allegedly committed – in 2007-08 – and could not be made so retrospectively.

Read | Chidambaram to SC: No account, property abroad, tell ED to show transcripts

Referring to this, Mehta told the bench that “as on date of registration of ECIR (ED’s equivalent of a police FIR), laundering is going on”. He said money from the transaction committed in 2007-08 continued to be laundered.

He told the court that it takes an “intelligent” mind to indulge in money laundering, as “layers and layers of concealing “ has to be done. In crimes of this nature, the evidence is mostly digital and “can disappear in seconds”, Mehta argued. The case, he said, is still at the investigation stage and evidence had to be submitted to the adjudicating authority under PMLA in “sealed cover”. “The statute contemplated sealed cover,” he added.

The ED, Mehta submitted, is empowered under the PMLA Act to arrest Chidambaram if it has the statutory material, and the question of custodial interrogation will be decided by the Special Judge.

Chidambaram has strongly objected to the agency trying to hand over investigation material to the court in sealed cover, saying that he did not know what it was and hence did not have any way to contradict it.

On this, Mehta said, “We are at a stage of investigation where he (Chidambaram) wants access to these records which even statutory authority is not entitled to.” Mehta said he is saying this only to underline that the “material in my possession cannot be used arbitrarily, and is sacrosanct till the chargesheet is filed…”

Mehta asserted that copies of evidence collected during the probe cannot be shared with accused before the chargesheet is filed. Taking exception, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Chidambaram, said his side had never asked for copies of evidence but said that only such evidence which the accused has already been confronted with should be shown to the court.

Referring to Chidambaram’s assertion through his lawyer that the ED is seeking his custody only to “humiliate me, humiliate me, humiliate me”, Mehta said it’s not for that but “only for Prevention, Prevention, Prevention, with capital P”. Mehta submitted that statutory entities abroad have given “specific inputs” of properties —such as their location, ownership, etc — in detail, he pointed out.