The CBI on Monday moved the Supreme Court challenging a Delhi High Court order granting bail to Karti Chidambaram in a case of alleged graft for facilitating FIPB clearance to INX Media in 2007.
Senior Congress leader and Karti’s father P. Chidambaram was the Union Finance Minister then.
Karti Chidambaram was granted bail by the Delhi High Court on March 23, 2018.
Pointing to the errors in the order granting bail to Karti Chidambaram, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) contended that the high court erred in exercising its concurrent jurisdiction in entertaining the bail plea when the same was already pending before the lower court with a pre-fixed date of hearing.
“It was impermissible in law for the high court in the exercise of concurrent jurisdiction to entertain the bail application when the same was already pending with the lower court with a pre-fixed date,” the CBI said in its petition challenging the high court order.
Contending that the high court could have entertained the plea-taking recourse to its concurrent jurisdiction “only and only when there exist special and exceptional circumstances” and where the very filing of the bail application before the court of special judge is “likely to result in miscarriage of justice and brazen and illegal abridgment of personal liberty of the accused”.
Asserting that the concurrent jurisdiction can be exercised in “rare and exceptional circumstance and not in routine manner”, the CBI contended that the high court had to record adequate reasons for entertaining such a bail plea.
Referring to Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the probe agency said that it does not give right to the accused to bypass the remedies before the court of first instance and directly approach the high court.
It asserted that no special or exceptional circumstances existed which warranted the exercise of concurrent jurisdiction by the high court.
It also assailed the high court order for erroneously conducting the detailed examination of evidence on merits at the stage of grant of bail and thereby seriously prejudicing its case.
Karti was arrested on February 28 for allegedly taking money to facilitate Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media in 2007.
