Lookout circular: Karti Chidambaram moves Madras High Court

Chennai: Karti Chidambaram, son of former union minister and Raja Sabha member P. Chidambaram, has approached the Madras high court seeking a direction to quash a “look out circular” (LOC) issued against him under the Passport Act in connection with a corruption case filed by the CBI.
 
In his petition, Karti submitted that a circular had been issued arbitrarily and without jurisdiction by the Foreigner Regional Registration Officer (FRRO) and the Bureau of Immigration under the Union Home Ministry on July 18 at the behest of different agencies to prevent him from travelling abroad.

He said, “The circular is a well thought out and meticulously orchestrated fraudulent plan of the CBI to stop me at the airport as and when I go abroad and leak it to the media that I was detained at the airport and cause embarrassment to me.”

Karti said he had responded to the summonses issued by the CBI in connection with the case and there was “no absolute cause of action” for the issuance of the LOC. When the matter came up for hearing before Justice D. Duraiswamy, he adjourned it to August 7 after Additional Solicitor General G. Rajagopalan sought time to get instructions on whether such a circular had been issued.
 
Karti had been summoned by the CBI twice since June to appear before it for questioning in connection with alleged irregularities in the clearance given by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) to the media group for allegedly receiving funds from Mauritius when his father was the finance minister in 2007.

Karti had sought time to appear before the CBI, which had on May 15 registered an FIR against him and others. He said the LOC was a coercive measure to make a person surrender to the investigating agency only if it was amply demonstrated that he repeatedly and deliberately failed to cooperate with the investigation. It had been issued to restrain him from going abroad, he stated.