New Delhi, June 4 (PTI): Former finance minister P Chidambaram is expected to depose before the Enforcement Directorate here tomorrow in connection with the Aircel-Maxis money laundering case.
Official sources said the agency has issued fresh summons to the senior Congress leader to appear before the investigating officer of the case.
Chidambaram’s role has come under the scanner in the INR 3,500 crore Aircel-Maxis deal in which the ED has already questioned his son, Karti.
The former finance minister, also the ex-home minister, had last week approached the court of Special Judge O P Saini seeking relief from arrest by the ED in this case.
The court had directed the ED not to take any coercive action or arrest him till June 5 in connection with the case.
The ED had first asked him to appear before it on May 30, and on the the same day, Chidambaram had approached the court.
The Aircel-Maxis cases pertains to grant of Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance to firm M/S Global Communication Holding Services Ltd in 2006 for investment in Aircel.
The Supreme Court had on March 12 directed investigating agencies -- the CBI and the ED -- to complete their probe into the 2G spectrum allocation cases, including the Aircel Maxis alleged money laundering case, in six months.
The ED had said that the FIPB approval in the Aircel-Maxis FDI case was granted in March 2006 by Chidambaram even though he was competent to accord approval on project proposals only up to INR 600 crore and beyond that it required the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA).
The ED is investigating “the circumstances of the FIPB approval granted (in 2006) by the then finance minister.”
The ED is probing the Aircel-Maxis deal under the PMLA after taking cognisance of a 2011 CBI FIR in the case.
However, the agencies have maintained that the FIR in the case has not been quashed.
