I-T files charge sheets against PC’s wife, son

In a major setback to P Chidambaram, the Income Tax department on Friday filed four charge sheets against the former Union finance minister’s family members, including his son Karti, under the Black Money Act for allegedly not disclosing their foreign assets.

The filing of the charge sheet against Chidambaram’s wife Nalini, Karti and daughter-in-law Srinidhi adds to the long list of legal woes to the lawyer-politician’s family. His son Karti was arrested in the INX scam and spent nearly a month in Tihar jail, while his wife Nalini is facing a probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the Sharada chit fund scam.

Income Tax department officials filed the charge sheets or prosecution complaints before a special court in Chennai. The cases have been filed under Section 50 of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015, which was passed by the Narendra Modi government to keep a tab on the unaccounted money.

Officials said Nalini, Karti and Srinidhi have been charged for allegedly not disclosing, either partly or fully, immovable assets like the one at Cambridge in the UK worth Rs 5.37 crore, property worth Rs 80 lakh in the UK and assets worth Rs 3.28 crore in the US, they said.

The charge sheets claimed that the family members of Chidambaram did not disclose these investments to the tax authority as also by the firm co-owned by Karti — Chess Global Advisory — in violation of the black money law. The I-T department had recently issued notices to Karti and his family members in the case, but the action was challenged before the Madras High Court.

Karti had refused to join the probe stating that he had already submitted the details of the assets.