Aircel-Maxis: Court granted CBI and ED a month to obtain a report on Letters Rogatory
New Delhi:
A Delhi court Tuesday granted CBI and ED a month to obtain a report on Letters Rogatory from the UK and Singapore in relation to their probe in the Aircel-Maxis matter against former Union minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti.
Special Judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar granted time till December 2 after the agencies informed that they are awaiting the replies of the LRs that have been sent to the countries.
A Letter Rogatory (LR) is a formal communication sent by Court to a foreign court requesting judicial assistance in a case.
The agencies informed the court that a reminder has been sent to both the countries to expedite the report.
Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain, appearing for the agencies, told the court that Enforcement Directorate had sent three reminders — September 17, October 12 and October 30 to Singapore to expeditiously execute the LR, and to the UK on October 12, October 19 and October 30 and their replies are awaited.
“Our officers are very actively and rigorously following it up. So, the request to your honour is to keep the matter after three weeks,” he said.
The case relates to alleged irregularities in the grant of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval in the Aircel-Maxis deal.
The approval was granted in 2006 when P Chidambaram was the Union Finance Minister.
According to the rules and the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy in force at that time, Chidambaram was allegedly empowered to give approval to proposals involving foreign investment only up to Rs 600 crore.
The CBI and the ED had alleged that Chidambaram, as finance minister had granted approval to the deal beyond his capacity benefiting certain persons and received kickbacks.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
