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Updated: Jun 18, 2020 20:21 IST

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday tweeted in support of former Union finance minister P Chidambaram, who faces arrest in the INX Media case, saying he was being “shamefully hunted down”.

“An extremely qualified and respected member of the Rajya Sabha, @PChidambaram_IN ji has served our nation with loyalty for decades including as Finance Minister & Home Minister,” Priyanka Gandhi said in a two-part tweet.

“He unhesitatingly speaks truth to power and exposes the failures of this government, but the truth is inconvenient to cowards so he is being shamefully hunted down. We stand by him and will continue to fight for the truth no matter what the consequences are,” she said.

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The senior Congress leader faces arrest in the INX Media case, which pertains to the alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance to the media group for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 307 crore at a time when was the Union finance minister. The CBI had registered an FIR on May 15, 2017, alleging irregularities in the FIPB clearance, the Enforcement Directorate lodged a money laundering case a year later.

After the Delhi High Court rejected the former Union finance minister’s anticipatory bail plea, he approached the Supreme Court seeking protection from arrest in the case. Chidambaram’s lawyer Kapil Sibal requested the Supreme Court registrar for urgent listing of his petition. The registrar asked Sibal to mention the matter before Justice NV Ramana on Wednesday.

Sibal, Abhishek Singhvi and Salman Khurshid are likely to highlight Chidambaram’s track record of responding to all summonses issued by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED), cite the date of the alleged offence and other details, and argue that there is absolutely no legal ground for his arrest.

On Tuesday, a few hours after the Delhi High Court had rejected Chidambaram’s plea for an anticipatory bail in the INX Media case, the CBI issued a notice asking him to appear before the investigation officer “within two hours”.

The CBI notice has asked Chidambaram to appear before R Parthasarthy, CBI deputy SP, who is investigating the case to record his statement under Section 161 of the CrPC. The notice, reportedly, has also been sent to his email ID.

A team of CBI officers visited his Jor Bagh residence but left after confirming that the former minister was not present there. They came back on Wednesday morning.

Chidambaram’s lawyer Arshdeep Singh Khurana has also written to the CBI in response to the notice that the investigative agency had put up outside the senior Congress leader’s residence on Tuesday evening.

According to his lawyer, the former Union minister has been permitted by the Supreme Court to mention the urgent Special Leave Petition against the order before the court at 10:30am on Wednesday.