Twist of fate: P Chidambaram spends night at CBI headquarter which he inaugurated in 2011

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P Chidambaram. File Photo

New Delhi, August 22: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram was arrested on Wednesday night by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), following which he was taken to its headquarter in Delhi’s Lodhi Road area.

When Chidambaram was a former union minister in 2011, he participated in the inauguration of the same CBI headquarter where he had to spend the night after being arrested on Wednesday night.

Chidambaram, who served as the Union Home Minister during November 2008 to July 2012 in the UPA government, was one of the key guests at the inauguration event of the CBI headquarters, held on June 30, 2011.

The Congress leader was taken to the same headquarter after CBI officials arrested him after a dramatic turn of events. CBI sleuths scaled the boundary walls of Chidambaram’s residence in Jor Bagh on Wednesday night to arrest him in connection with the INX Media case.

CBI, which had earlier issued a lookout notice against P Chidambaram, finally arrested the leader after he made a dramatic appearance at the Congress headquarters in Delhi and addressed a press conference in which he denied all charges levelled against him and his son Karti Chidambaram in the INX Media case.

He said lies were being spread by “pathological liars.” On Wednesday, the former finance and home minister failed to get any relief from the Supreme Court over CBI and Enforcement Directorate’s pursuit of him. He will be produced before a CBI court today at Rouse Avenue today.

Sources told news agency ANI that Chidambaram was arrested after an arrest warrant was issued under his name. The CBI and ED filed caveats in Supreme Court over Chidambaram’s plea seeking protection from arrest in the INX Media case.

Earlier on Tuesday night, the CBI had put up a notice outside the Congress leader’s residence to appear before them in two hours prompting his lawyer to request the investigation agency to not take any “coercive action” until the hearing of Chidambaram’s bail plea on Wednesday.

The Congress leader’s lawyers had moved the top court against the Delhi High Court’s order dismissing Chidambaram’s anticipatory bail plea regarding cases filed by the CBI and ED in the INX Media case.