For the past 125 days or so, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is waiting for a Sanction for Prosecution from the Finance Ministry headed by Arun Jaitley in the Aircel-Maxis scam. A week prior to the filing of a chargesheet against the former tainted Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the Aircel-Maxis scam on July 19, the CBI had approached Finance Ministry through its administrate Department of Personnel for sanction to prosecute four Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers, who are co-accused with Chidambaram. According to reliable sources, Chidambaram is blackmailing Arun Jaitley by threatening to expose the huge income from Corporates received by Jaitley’s son Rohan Jaitley and daughter Sonali Jaitley and her husband Jaiyesh Bakshi.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley must be held responsible for this fraud in saving his buddy – the corrupt Chidambaram.

It is an open secret that the hearts of many top babus in the Finance Ministry and Income Tax bleed for Chidambaram. This is mostly due to mismanagement or soft attitude of the current incumbent, Jaitley. According to sources, the Income Tax and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officers who raided fugitive Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi in January 2017 have found Sonali Jaitley and her husband’s money trail with the absconding diamond traders. Officers close to Chidambaram from these departments passed on all the data regarding this to him and it is believed that they have even given the Income Tax Returns of son, daughter and her husband from 2010 onwards to their former boss Chidambaram. These documents expose huge money trails from Corporate houses to the children of Jaitley, ostensibly accounted as legal retainership to Jaitley’s son and daughter. Why do Corporates pay such large sums of money to these young advocates who are rarely seen in any court?

A few weeks ago, Congress releasing a money trail from Mehul Choksi’s firms to Jaitley’s kid’s accounts was a warning shot to Arun Jaitley[1]. This is a message to Jaitley by Chidambaram. Some months ago Chidambaram had leaked this info to some media houses and asked them to write a letter to Jaitley and his kids to get a response on the matter. Due to his huge clout in media, Jaitley managed to put a kibosh on the media houses (meaning made them to keep silent). Seeing media being unhelpful, Chidambaram changed tactics and used the Congress party to conduct a press conference to release the money trail documents from Mehul Choksi to Sonali Jaitley. This was a clear message to Jaitley from Chidambaram that if you touch me I will expose you. What else could be the reason for Jaitley to withhold CBI’s Sanction for Prosecution for more than 125 days? According to CBI officers, they have applied sanction for prosecution on July 12. Normally CBI gets approval to sanction for prosecution in one or two days.

Who are the four IAS officers co-accused with Chidambaram and son?

Former Finance Secretary Ashok Jha

Former Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla , currently serving as the Chairman of National Stock Exchange

, currently serving as the Chairman of National Stock Exchange Kumar Sanjay Krishnan belonging to the Assam Cadre

belonging to the Assam Cadre Deepak Kumar Singh belonging to the Bihar cadre

On the previous hearing on October 1, in 2G Court, CBI was slammed by Judge OP Saini for the delays in providing Sanction for Prosecution of the above named four IAS officers. The Judge even went on to say that he will pass “suitable orders” if the sanction for prosecution is not submitted by November 26, the next hearing[2].

Not getting Sanction for Prosecution against the co-accused four IAS officers will dilute the charges against main accused Chidambaram in the Aircel-Maxis chargesheet filed by CBI. This will also hamper Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) Chargesheet. Apart from this, the Finance Ministry’s dubious activity will hamper the filing of chargesheets by CBI and ED in INX Media case also. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley must be held responsible for this fraud in saving his buddy – the corrupt Chidambaram.

It is high time Prime Minister Narendra Modi intervened and gave orders to Finance Ministry to provide sanction to prosecute the four IAS officers, co-accused with Chidambaram.

References:

[1] Arun Jaitley’s daughter works for Mehul Choksi, alleges Rahul Gandhi – Oct 22, 2018, India Today

[2] CBI pulled up for Finance Ministry’s delays in giving Sanction for Prosecution in Aircel-Maxis scam – Oct 2, 2018, PGurus.com