Chidambaram Painted as ‘Kingpin’ of Offence That Didn’t Exist in 2007, Singhvi Tells SC

Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) was applying the money laundering law retrospectively against former finance minister P Chidambaram in the INX Media case.

Singhvi’s argument

Appearing for Chidambaram, who has sought anticipatory bail in the ED case, Singhvi said the alleged offence went back to 2007-08, whereas the relevant provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) only took effect in 2009. The ED had nevertheless invoked them, he argued.

“You try and paint a person as a kingpin when these alleged offences did not exist at that time,” Singhvi, himself a senior Congress leader, told the bench headed by Justice R Banumathi. He said the sections cited in the FIR became offences only through an amendment notified in June 2009, a year after the alleged acts.

Singhvi also said the agencies’ line of questioning suggested they were trying to force a confession, and that they were wrongly portraying Chidambaram as evasive.

On Monday, the court had extended until Tuesday Chidambaram’s protection from arrest in the case.

Demand for interrogation transcripts

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, also appearing for Chidambaram, filed an application asking the court to direct the ED to produce transcripts of his questioning on December 19 last year and on January 1, 2019 and January 21, 2019. These would show whether Chidambaram had in fact been evasive, as the agency claims, Sibal said.

He objected that the ED could not hand the court documents at random, without the defence seeing them, in order to seek custody. “They are just producing documents at random and saying this is part of the case diary,” he said.

See also: Indian National Congress and political leaders.

Originally published on 27 August 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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