INX Media case: ED probes Karti Chidambaram-Peter Mukerjea links, writes to UK for bank account details
A letter of request has been sent to the UK government to obtain information about a bank account, which is being managed by a person called Rabin Mukerjea, believed to be Peter Mukerjea's elder son based in London.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has sent a letter of request to the UK to obtain information relating to INX Media case involving Karti Chidambaram and Peter Mukerjea. The agency is probing the 80 million pounds parked in a UK bank account.
Sources said the letter of request (LR) has been sent to obtain information about the account, which is being managed by a person called Rabin Mukerjea, who is believed to be Peter Mukerjea's elder son based in London.
The money, which is described as illicit funds, in this account is suspected to have been routed through hawala via overseas countries. The agency officials are of the view that the money is connected with the siphoned off funds in the deal. The agency is probing both FEMA violations and money laundering of the amount funded by Peter and Indrani Mukerjea.
ED TO PROBE PETER MUKERJEA AND KARTI CHIDAMBARAM INX MEDIA
The LR has been sent to get detailed information about the money, which could be linked to Peter Mukerjea and Karti Chidambaram INX Media FIPB approvals deal. The CBI has already registered a case to probe the alleged role of Karti Chidambaram for getting FIPB approvals for the media group by using his influence at a time when his father P Chidambaram was the finance minister.
In early 2007, INX Media Pvt Ltd, which was co-founded by Indrani and Peter Mukerjea, approached the Foreign Investment Promotion Board for issuing equity shares to three non-resident investors under the FDI route.
This money, according to the FIR, was sought for creating and operating a number of television channels. In its application to the FIPB, INX had also announced its intention to "make a downstream financial investment to the extent of 26 per cent of the issued and outstanding equity share capital of INX News Private Limited".
In July 2007, the FIPB board approved INX's proposal, specifically an FDI/NRI inflow of Rs 4.62 crore, but did not approve the proposed downstream investment. In fact, its note to the FIPB board, the FIPB unit of the finance ministry noted that "downstream investment in INX News Pvt Ltd" would require separate approval.
INX MEDIA GENERATED MORE FUNDS THAN APPROVED
The FIR primarily alleges that "INX Media deliberately and in violations of the conditions and approval i) made a downstream investment and ii) generated more than Rs 305 crore foreign direct investment in INX Media Pvt Ltd against the approved foreign inflow of Rs 4.62 crore by issuing shares to foreign investors at a premium of more than Rs 800 per share."
While the Mukerjeas' company had officially received permission to raise Rs 4.62 crore in FDI, they actually raised over Rs 300 crores. It also allegedly went ahead with the downstream investment despite not having received approval.
When these violations came to light in early 2008, the "FIPB unit" informed income tax authorities that it was looking into the matter and wrote a letter to INX Media. The ED is now probing whether the UK bank account money is linked to the alleged illegal deal.
Also read: ED notice to Karti Chidambaram, others for foreign exchange violations