 "Aircel-Maxis case: P Chidambaram appears before ED; questioned for 2 hours")
Former Finance minister P Chidambaram was questioned on Tuesday for over two hours by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the Aircel-Maxis money laundering case.
This is the first time that the senior Congress leader has deposed for questioning before the ED.
He arrived at the agency's headquarter annexe office here around 10:58am accompanied by a lawyer, even as a strong contingent of police and CRPF personnel set up a security cordon at the office.
He was allowed by the agency to go out for lunch around 1:30 pm after over two hours of questioning, officials said.
The grilling will begin at 3 pm again, they said.
The agency had issued a fresh summon to him yesterday to appear before the investigating officer of the case.
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The agency is today recording his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Chidambaram's role has come under the scanner in the Rs 10 billion (Rs 3,500) crore Aircel-Maxis deal in which the ED has already questioned his son, Karti.
The former finance minister, also an ex-home minister, had last week approached the court of Special Judge O P Saini seeking relief from arrest by the ED in the case.
The same court today directed the ED not to take any coercive action or arrest him till July 10 in connection with the case.
The ED had first asked him to appear before it on May 30 and on the same day, Chidambaram knocked on the court's door.
The court, in its order on May 30, had noted that Chidambaram has undertaken to comply with the summons issued by the ED, while saying he apprehended his arrest by the agency.
The Supreme Court had on March 12 directed investigating agencies -- the CBI and the ED -- to complete their probe into the 2G spectrum allocation cases, including the Aircel Maxis alleged money laundering case, in six months.
The agency had said that the FIPB approval in the Aircel-Maxis FDI case was granted in March 2006 by Chidambaram even though he was competent to accord approval on project proposals only up to Rs 600 crore and beyond that it required the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA).
The ED is investigating "the circumstances of the FIPB approval granted (in 2006) by the then finance minister."
"In the instant case, the approval for FDI of USD 800 million (over Rs 3,500 crore) was sought. Hence, the CCEA was competent to grant the approval.
"However, the approval was not obtained from the CCEA," the ED had alleged.
The agency said its probe revealed that the case of the said FDI was "wrongly projected as an investment of Rs 180 crore so that it need not be sent to the CCEA to avoid a detailed scrutiny".
The ED is probing the Aircel-Maxis deal under the PMLA after taking cognisance of a 2011 CBI FIR in the case.
The senior Chidambaram had earlier described the ED action in this case as a "crazy mixture of falsehoods and conjectures" and said that the charge sheet filed by probe agencies had been rejected by the court.
However, the agencies have maintained that the FIR in the case has not been quashed.
In September last year, the ED had attached assets worth Rs 1.16 crore of Karti and a firm allegedly linked to him in connection with this case.