New Delhi: After nine days in custody, a Delhi Court on Friday granted a further three days' custody of Karti Chidambaram to the Central Bureau of Investigation after the agency claimed to have raided a new premise of Advantage Strategic.
They further added that Karti would be confronted with CA Bhaskaraman and Indrani Mukherjee as well. The matter will now be heard on March 12.
CBI had sought to extend of the custody by six days in the the INX Media money laundering case, saying that it raided a "new address" of the Advantage Strategic Private Limited which has led the agency to discover several incriminating documents which link Karti to the firm.
Karti has been continuously denying any association with the organisation.
This comes days after CBI had presented a confidential document to the court, showing that they had discovered evidence incriminating Karti in dollar transactions.
This is apart from the statement by Indrani who claimed that she and her husband Peter Mukherjee had paid a bride of 3 million dollars to Karti for a FIPB approval to INX media house.
"Based on the information received during the interrogation, raids have been conducted yesterday and day before at the office of Advantage Strategic Pvt Ltd. This office was not known earlier. Vast voluminous documents have been recovered which have some direct link hence it will be necessary to confront Karti with this," said ASG Tushar Mehta, appearing for the CBI.
CBI also claimed that that the forensic results of the hard disk of Bhaskaraman, Karti’s accountant, had arrived and that Karti would now be interrogated with the same. The agency has moved an application to confront Bhaskaraman with Karti now after extension of the custody.
Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing Karti, lashed out at the CBI saying that the agency was keeping Karti in a cell with guards playing cards till late night, which led to his blood pressure shooting up.
"On March 6, for some mysterious reason, Karti was moved to a cell where four guards were too put up with him. There is a light shining into the room all the time as the guards were playing cards. On night of 6th and 7th, Karti was questioned till 2.30 am. March 7, Karti was allowed to sleep at 10.30 pm and BP was 140/90. On March 8, Karti's BP was 150/100. Does this mean that continued harassment will go on unless a suitable confession is given?" he said.
Singhvi also stated that the address raided by the CBI was given by him through an affidavit to the agency on July 17, 2017 and the claim of discovery made by CBI was completely "spurious."
"I am astonished that the case has been going on for a year. The secret office address which you are saying now is a registered office of the company which is there in the ROC. Is it possible that the country's premier investigative agency can't know the registered address of the company. This is travesty of justice if such frivolous grounds are used to seek further custody," he said.
He also moved a bail application, but since the CBI was not ready with a reply, it will be now be filed on or before March 14.
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