January 22, 2019:

On Monday, the Supreme Court deferred to Jan 28 the hearing on a petition moved by Karti Chaidambaram, son of Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, seeking permission to travel abroad.

A bench comprising of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv Khanna adjourned the hearing after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Enforcement Directorate, sought time to file the response to Karti's petition.

Karti has said in the petition that he wanted to travel to France, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom for the next few months. The petition is being opposed by the investigating agency.

The petition states, "The petitioner will be required to travel to France, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom over the course of next few months. This is in respect of various international tennis tournaments organised by a company called 'Totus Tennis Ltd' having its registered office in the UK."

It also said that Karti is associated with tennis as a "former player, current administrator and entrepreneur".

It added, "His presence in the UK is required for the review and operational meetings of Totus between January 21 to 27, 2019."

Earlier, the apex court had refused urgent hearing on the plea of Karti saying, "Who is Karti? Karti Chidambaram, you are saying? Let him stay where he is. We have more important matters to decide".

Prior to this, the top court on Sep 18 last year had allowed Karti to travel to the UK from Sep 20-30.

Karti is facing criminal cases which are being investigated by the ED and the CBI.

One of the cases relates to FIPB clearance to INX Media for receiving foreign funds of ₹ 305 crore when his father was the finance minister.

The ED had said that Karti, who is also facing proceedings in cases like Aircel-Maxis and money laundering matters, has been "blatantly misusing" the liberty granted by court in allowing him to travel abroad and has been using the same to protract the investigation in the case.

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