The Delhi High Court on Friday issued notice on a plea by Enforcement Directorate (ED)
in the INX Media money laundering case challenging a Trial Court order directing supply
of copies of all unrelied documents of the case to Former Union Minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti P. Chidambaram.
Justice Yogesh Khanna issued notice on the plea while posting the matter for further
hearing on April 20.
The plea has challenged an order passed by Special Judge of Rouse Avenue Courts dated January 25, 2020 which was passed on the applications moved by the P Chidambaram and his son seeking inspection of the unrelied documents.
It is pertinent to note that the High Court had in November last year dismissed a similar plea by CBI challenging the Special Judge’s order directing it to allow the accused persons to inspect the documents kept in Malkhana room collected by the agency while
investigating the INX Media Case.
Justice Mukta Gupta had observed that at the time of framing of charge, an accused can
bring to the notice of the Court that an unrelied document recovered during the course of investigation and kept back by the investigating agency is relevant and has a bearing on the prosecution case. Since the accused can exercise such right only if he is aware of the existence of the document, he should have the right to access and inspect the
documents collected by the investigating agency.
CBI had registered an FIR dated 15th May 2017 against INX Media Pvt. Ltd., Karti
Chidambaram and others for offences under sec. 120B read with sec. 420 of IPC along
with sec. 8, 12(2) and 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Since the
offences find mentioned in the Schedule appended to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, a case was also registered by the Directorate of Enforcement (DoE), Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue, Government of India on 18th May 2017 and an investigation was therefore taken up for possible action under PMLA.
