Offices of Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, have been raided by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax (IT) Department on Tuesday in connection with an ongoing probe into Aircel-Maxis deal.
The raids come after ED had issued summons to two directors of Advantage Strategic Consulting in the Aircel-Maxis case in August. The consulting firm is allegedly linked to Karti Chidambaram.
When the Maxis' proposal to buy a majority stake in Aircel was pending for approval before the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram in 2006, Advantage Strategic Consulting had moved Rs 26,00,444 to Aircel account, India Today reported.
Advantage Strategic Consulting was later acquired by a firm owned by Karti and the two officials summoned by ED were said to be his close friends.
"ED raids started from morning 8 am at various locations at BC linked firms in Chennai as Advantage Str in connection with Aircel-Maxis scam," tweeted Subramanian Swamy, senior BJP leader, who had exposed the deal in 2012.
Karti Chidambaram is also "under scanner" for Rajasthan ambulance scam, ED officials told The Economic Times, while the agency's spokesperson confirmed the searches conducted in some of his offices in Chennai.
"If govt wants to target me, it should do so directly. My family and I are quite prepared to face the "malicious onslaught" launched by government," the former Finance Minister tweeted.
ED had also questioned former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran and his brother Kalanithi in the Aircel-Maxis case in December last year, after probing all the financial transactions related to Sun Network group companies.
