On 19 July 2018, the CBI filed a supplementary chargesheet against former Union Home Minister and Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram,...
On 19 July 2018, the CBI filed a supplementary chargesheet against former Union Home Minister and Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, his son Karti Chidambaram and five other public officials including a former Secretary, a Joint Secretary, an Under Secretary and a Joint Director of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance in the Aircel Maxis case. This case in which the CBI filed fresh charges against Chidambaram four years after the first chargesheet filed was yet another case where the government in power was using the CBI for conducting a political witch-hunt.
No additional evidence was required – the gaping holes in CBI’s investigation in this case revealed that the agency was being influenced by the powers that be, whether it was the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in 2018 or the Congress-led UPA government earlier.
The Aircel Maxis case started in 2006 when politician-advocate Subramanian Swamy moved the Supreme Court and demanded an investigation. In 2014, the CBI filed a chargesheet against the two Maran brothers – Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi, the first of whom had been Union Minister of Communications, while the other was at the helms of the Sun Media Group – and some other officials, but the case...
