Documents and other material recovered by the Central Bureau of Investigation during the searches conducted on March 7 and 8 at the new address of Advantage Strategic Private Limited (ASPL) at Nungambakkam in Chennai are being seen as having substantial evidentiary value for the agency probing the INX Media corruption case of 2007. Perusal of the list shows that “documents seized during the search either belong to Karti Chidambaram or his family members'', said the CBI in its note.
Recoveries of these documents, CBI believes, can establish the money trail in the case.
ASPL is alleged to have been indirectly controlled by Karti, and the company is alleged to have received kickbacks in the INX Media case. Karti will be confronted with these documents by the CBI whose probe hinges on establishing the money trail in the case by linking the company with Karti or his family members.
The CBI has alleged that Karti used the office of his father, then finance minister P. Chidambaram to favour INX media and in turn received monetary gains, a charge vehemently denied by the Chidambarams who have called it a case of political vendetta.
However, the agency has secured Karti's extended custody for three more days on Friday, contending that the fresh leads and material evidence in the case requires further questioning of the accused.
According to the CBI, the new address of the ASPL is given as 2/33, Nageswara road at Nungambakkam in Chennai. However, Karti's counsel in the special CBI court Abhishek Manu Singvi contested that this address had been shared with the probe agency in July last year and whatever is in the knowledge of the accused has already been disclosed by him.
Disclosures made by an accused during custody gain special significance and have high evidentiary value as compared to information shared by the suspect when he is not in custody. This is one of the primary reasons the CBI wants to confront Karti with other co-accused like his chartered accountant Bhaskararaman, who is lodged in Tihar jail, besides confronting him with material evidence to be able to elicit some information from him. Investigators said that Karti's disclosures in custody will become important for the CBI under section 27 of the Evidence Act .
“If the accused in custody discloses any information that finally leads to the recovery of any evidence in the case, it has high evidentiary value in the court of law. On the contrary, if the accused who is not in custody reveals any information that also results in recovery of any evidence, it will still heavily depend on the procedures that have been followed by the investigating agency,'' explained former CBI joint director N.R. Wasan, who retired as the Director General of Bureau of Police Research and Development.
Even though the CBI has claimed that it has evidence to establish the direct links of Karti with ASPL, Karti has denied such linkages.
Wasan said that unless the CBI is able to link the money trail to Karti in the INX Media case, the case will not be able to stand on its feet. According to him, it is going to be a real challenge for the CBI given the fact that there are so many loopholes in the existing law which make it difficult for any probe agency to determine the real beneficiaries. “There is no coordination between the Company Law Board, SFIO CBI and ED in such matters. Till all these agencies work as one close unit, it will be difficult to bring such cases to their logical conclusion,'' Wasan said.