Grossly illegal: Karti Chidambaram writes to Lok Sabha Speaker over CBI raids

New Delhi, May 27: Congress leader Karti Chidambaram On Friday wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, over the breach of his Parliamentary privilege in the course of the recent searches conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) at his residences.

In a letter to Birla, Karti Chidambaram also said that over the course of the past few years, his family and he himself have become targets of a "relentless campaign by the present government and its investigating agencies which are trying to silence our voices of dissent by foisting one fake case after another".

"I am writing to you now because I have become the victim of a grossly illegal and patently unconstitutional action," Karti Chidambaram said in his letter to Birla.

"The Central Bureau of Investigation in the garb of conducting an investigation into an 11-year-old decision of the Government in which I have absolutely no involvement raided my residence in Delhi," he said.

In the course of this so-called raid, certain officers of the CBI seized my "highly confidential and sensitive personal notes and papers" pertaining to the Parliamentary Standing Committee for Information and Technology, Karti Chidambaram alleged.

"Shockingly, even my draft notes and questions which I had intended to ask witnesses summoned to the Committee, were also seized," he alleged.

He claimed that his handwritten notes pertaining to the depositions made to the Committee by witnesses were also seized for reasons best known to the Agency.

Karti Chidambaram alleged that these actions by the CBI, in so far as they relate to "interference with my duties as a Parliamentarian, amount to a direct assault upon democratic principles on which our Parliament is founded".

"I, therefore, urge you to take immediate cognizance of this issue, which is a brazen breach of my Parliamentary privilege," he said in the letter.