Supreme Court defers to January 28 hearing on Karti Chidambaram's plea to travel abroad

The Supreme Court on January 21 deferred to January 28 the hearing on a plea moved by Karti Chidambaram, son of senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, seeking permission to travel abroad.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv Khanna adjourned the hearing after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Enforcement Directorate, sought time to file the response to Karti's plea.

Karti has said in the plea that he wanted to travel to France, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom for the next few months. The plea is being opposed by the investigating agency.

"The petitioner will be required to travel to France, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom over the course of next few months. This is in respect of various international tennis tournaments organised by a company called 'Totus Tennis Ltd' having its registered office in the UK," the plea said.

It also said that Karti is associated with tennis as a "former player, current administrator and entrepreneur". 

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"His presence in the UK is required for the review and operational meetings of Totus between January 21 to 27, 2019," the plea said.

Earlier, the apex court had refused urgent hearing on the plea of Karti saying, "Who is Karti? Karti Chidambaram, you are saying? Let him stay where he is. We have more important matters to decide".

Prior to this, the top court on September 18 last year had allowed Karti to travel to the UK from September 20-30.

Karti is facing criminal cases which are being investigated by the ED and the CBI.

One of the cases relates to FIPB clearance to INX Media for receiving foreign funds of Rs 305 crore when his father was the finance minister.

The ED had said that Karti, who is also facing proceedings in cases like Aircel-Maxis and money laundering matters, has been "blatantly misusing" the liberty granted by court in allowing him to travel abroad and has been using the same to protract the investigation in the case.

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