INX Media Case: Kingpins in Govt Vilifying Chidambaram, Says Cong

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that 11 officials, including top secretaries signed the file before Chidambaram.

File image of former finance minister P Chidambaram.

(Photo: PTI)

The Congress on Friday, 20 September, claimed the "kingpins" of the INX Media case were in the government and were waging a vilification campaign to defame former finance minister P Chidambaram.

The party also claimed that his arrest was a paramount example of political vendetta.

Senior party leader Jairam Ramesh called it a government conspiracy as investigating agencies probing the case have held only Chidambaram guilty and not the 11 other officers who put their signatures before him in giving clearances to INX Media.

“It is abundantly clear that this is a conspiracy on the part of the government and not on the part of the person who is accused. It is a case of nothing less than a political vendetta. The kingpins are in the government who are waging this campaign of character assassination and vilification to defame, not only an individual or a former minister, but the Congress party in the process.”

Jairam Ramesh to PTI

Ramesh added that one fact that had not been highlighted by the probe agencies investigating the case is that 24 proposals were put up before the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) and a total of 11 officials, including top secretaries in the Government of India, signed on the file before Chidambaram.

"The officers have not been found to have done something illegal or something blatantly wrong. Now, if they have been exonerated, the question arises, how is that the 12th man who signed suddenly becomes the kingpin," Ramesh asked.

The probe agencies have chosen to suppress that the INX Media case was part of a set of about 24 proposals, which were put up to the finance minister for approval. In that file, there were 11 signatures, including those of six members of the FIPB, setup in 1991, he said.

After the Board examined the proposal, it went to the Finance Ministry for further approval by the under secretary, deputy secretary, director, joint secretary, additional secretary and finance secretary. He said the finance secretary looked at the proposal twice, once as the chairman of the FIPB and the second time as the finance secretary.

The INX Media case has gone through 11-layered scrutiny and each one of them has been spoken to by the investigative agencies, he said.

"Is this a penalty for signing on a file based on what has come to the minister? If the penalty is custody in Tihar Jail then no minister, I can assure you, will sign any file. This, I think is a basic fact, which the investigating agencies have chosen not to highlight," he noted.

Chidambaram had on 9 September tweeted that no officer did anything wrong and no arrest should be made.

(With unputs from PTI)