Aircel Maxis scam: ED's January raid unearthed confidential CBI report at Chidambaram's residence

A raid conducted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on 13 January at former Union minister P Chidambaram’s Jorbagh residence yielded a confidential CBI report, said media reports. The report was submitted to the Supreme Court in 2013 in a sealed cover by the CBI on the Aircel Maxis scam.

Enforcement Directorate found a confidential report of CBI in the house of P Chidambaram in Delhi during the raid on 13 Jan. CBI had submitted this confidential report on Aircel Maxis Scam in a sealed cover with Supreme Court in 2013: ED Sources

— ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2018

ANI reported that the report was an unsigned copy which means it was leaked from the CBI. The ED had reported this to the CBI after which the CBI has started an inquiry as to how the report reached Chidambaram’s residence.

Such reports are meant for the court’s perusal only and are not made available to anyone else, reported The Economic Times. The report was filed before a division bench of Justice GS Singhvi and Justice K Radhakrishnan on 1 August, 2013. Chidambaram was then a minister in the UPA-2 cabinet.

The raids themselves were reported in January after which Chidambaram had said that there is no FIR against him or his son in the Aircel-Maxis case. “There is no predicate scheduled offence. Hence the ED has no jurisdiction. Yet the ED, at the instance of the government, continues to misuse its powers. I belong to the Opposition party. Let the government misuse the ED. I shall neither bend nor break and I shall continue to speak and write,” he said.

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The ED case pertains to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval granted in 2006 by Chidambaram, the then-finance minister. The agency had found that the approval given in the Aircel-Maxis deal was given by Chidambaram beyond his mandate. FIPB was a national agency of central government with the remit to consider and recommend foreign direct investments (FDI).

In the Aircel-Maxis deal, the FIPB approval was supposed to go to the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs. However, the probe found that Chidambaram gave the approval on his own. ED, in its investigation, also found that the amount for FIPB approval was wrongly projected to conceal the facts. ED also found that a company promoted by Karti and P Chidambaram’s nephew A Palaniappan allegedly received $2 lakh from the Maxis Group in the guise of software consultancy.