At the very least, Karti Chidambaram’s arrest demonstrates the Government’s willingness to crack down on the UPA-era corruption. But this will appear more meaningful if the investigating authorities follow up the process to its logical end. As of now, only the first step has been taken.
The charges against the accused, which include Karti Chidambaram, have to be strengthened before they are presented to the court of law when the trial begins. We have seen in the 2G Spectrum case how there can be a slip between the cup and the lip, when all the accused including former Union Telecommunications Minister A Raja, walked away free as the court found them innocent. There was clearly a lapse on the part of the probe agencies or the prosecution or both since no sensible person actually believes there had been no corruption. Now, neither the Central Bureau of Investigation nor the Enforcement Directorate, which are investigating the case involving Karti Chidambaram, would want a repeat of the 2G fiasco. But the real story lies elsewhere. Karti Chidambaram hadn’t been operating in a vacuum. The irregularities he is accused of having committed happened when his father and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram was the Union Minister for Finance. What a coincidence that the allegations against the junior Chidambaram relate to dealing that come under the Finance Ministry!
Karti Chidambaram has been accused, by one of the co-accused in the case through a statement before a judicial magistrate (which is admissible evidence in a court of law), of taking bribes from a media organisation to get foreign funding cleared from the Finance Ministry. The co-accused also said in the statement that she along with her husband had met the then Finance Minister at his office, where the Minister told them to ‘help’ out his son’s business. Now, one can seek to deflect from the gravity of the charges by claiming that the statement has no value since it has been made by a co-accused and could be a ploy by her to wriggle out of the situation she finds herself in. Actually, the contrary is true. The co-accused who has made this sensational disclosure to the magistrate has strengthened the case against herself since she admitted to having paid the bribe. The next logical step would be to widen the probe by bringing P Chidambaram into the ambit. After all, if the accusations are true, then Karti Chidambaram was able to indulge in wrongdoing only because he was assured of backing from his powerful father.
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