Karti Chidambaram’s Diageo FIR Turns on a $15,000 Fee

The CBI case against Congress MP Karti Chidambaram lists a $15,000 Diageo Scotland fee as the price of help on a duty-free whisky ban. The same FIR also records a ₹22.50 crore Sequoia Capital share trail from 2008. Karti has asked the Delhi High Court to quash the paper, and a judge recused in April 2026 before that plea was heard.

The whisky number is the line that travelled. The larger rupee figure, and a 2005 airport-shelf fight that duty-free managers said they had settled in weeks, sit in the same file.

A $15,000 Consultancy Beside a ₹22.50 Crore Share Deal

The Central Bureau of Investigation filed the January 2025 corruption FIR as RC 22020253001 on January 1, after a complaint by inspector Ravi Raj Khatik. The paper grew out of a preliminary enquiry opened on May 29, 2018 into Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearances, not out of a fresh whisky raid. Named with Karti are S. Bhaskararaman, Advantage Strategic Consulting Pvt. Ltd. (ASCPL), Diageo Scotland, Sequoia Capital Mauritius and Vasan Healthcare Pvt. Ltd.

Charges cited are Sections 120B read with 420 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code, and Sections 8, 9 and 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The CBI said a later probe would test those criminal-law heads, and that jail terms can run up to seven years plus fines.

TWO MONEY TRAILS IN ONE FIR

The enquiry, the FIR said, found that Diageo Scotland and Sequoia “suspiciously transferred funds to ASPCL.” Public argument after the filing treated those transfers as one bribe story. The FIR keeps them as two events, years apart, with different payers.

What the CBI Alleges Diageo Paid For

Diageo Scotland, the CBI said, used to import duty-free Johnnie Walker whisky. In 2005 the India Tourism Development Corporation, which then held a monopoly on imported duty-free liquor sales, put an embargo on the Diageo group’s duty-free products. The agency said that hit the firm hard, because 70% of its India business sat in Johnnie Walker.

In order to lift the ban, Diageo Scotland approached Karti P Chidambaram

Central Bureau of Investigation, case document, January 2025

The FIR says $15,000 then reached ASCPL, an entity the agency calls controlled by Karti and Bhaskararaman, under a contract the CBI calls fake, booked as consultancy. The case document on the agency site does not say on which date that dollar payment moved. Diageo declined to comment on the allegation. A spokesperson for United Spirits, the Indian drinks business in which Diageo holds a stake of about 56%, also declined to comment.

This is the fourth CBI corruption matter tied to Karti after the Aircel-Maxis case, a Chinese-visa case and the INX Media case. ASCPL has already been on the record in the INX Media file and in the visa file.

Duty-Free Shelves Lost Johnnie Walker in 2005

The FIR dates the embargo to 2005, with several case summaries putting it in April. The contemporaneous duty-free record is a public pricing row, not a closed-door plea. In February 2005, ITDC froze payment on a prior order of 17 containers from Diageo after an internal pricing inquiry, and Johnnie Walker disappeared from ITDC shops at the main airports.

ITDC had said manufacturer prices were unfair and that it was losing money on every bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label, a line it put at around 10% of sales. Tourism minister Renuka Chowdhury had already ordered payments withheld. Trade desks called the fight Scotchgate. UDV India, Diageo’s local unit, stopped extra free stock. Officers around ITDC were moved.

By March 4, 2005, ITDC sources told the Moodie Davitt Report the corporation had resolved an earlier dispute over unpaid goods and that talks on future prices were under way. “All is well,” an ITDC source said. “If there’s anything we owe them we will pay them.” Rajeev Talwar, then ITDC chairman and managing director, said on March 8, 2005 that blame had been fixed, a culprit suspended, and Johnnie Walker, including Black Label, was back on duty-free shelves.

That public sequence does not decide whether a later private fee was paid, or whether any public servant was moved. It does show the shelf fight was not a secret in 2005, and that ITDC itself said the commercial dispute was being closed within weeks.

The Quash Plea Rests on a Twenty-Year Delay

On January 10, 2025, Karti filed in a New Delhi court denying the CBI claims and saying he was “neither a shareholder nor Director” of the firm in question. A Delhi court directed the CBI to give him three days’ prior notice if it moved to arrest him in this FIR. In early February 2025 he asked the Delhi High Court to quash the case. ASCPL filed a matching plea.

The case is mala fide and is borne out of political vendetta

Karti Chidambaram, court filing, New Delhi, January 10, 2025

Advocate Arshdeep Singh Khurana has appeared on the High Court challenge. The petition says the FIR is illegal, that he was never called into the 2018 preliminary enquiry, and that no specific public servant he is said to have influenced is named.

GROUNDS IN THE QUASH PLEA

• The delay: The plea says the facts run from 2004 to 2010, while the FIR was lodged in 2025, a gap it calls a gross delay of 20 years.
• The bribe head: Karti says there is no allegation that he demanded or accepted a bribe, so Sections 8 and 9 of the Prevention of Corruption Act are not made out.
• The missing officer: The FIR, the plea says, does not name any public servant who was actually influenced.
• The 17A point: Counsel submitted that prior approval under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act was not taken before the probe.
• The firm: His January 10 filing says he was neither a shareholder nor a director of the company that received the transfers.

P. Chidambaram, the former finance minister and Karti’s father, is not named as an accused. The CBI document says he approved Sequoia’s proposal in November 2008 while in that office. Asked by text, he said he had no comment.

Why Justice Sharma Stepped Off the Bench

On August 4, 2025, Justice Ravinder Dudeja deferred the quash plea after the public prosecutor said related matters were listed on August 12, 2025. The court recorded that ASCPL’s identical petition was already on that date. On April 28, 2026, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma recused when the matter reached her. She said it “has to go before another bench,” and that ASCPL’s plea would travel with it. Some reports quote the short order as “List before another bench.” She gave no detailed reason in open court. It was not her first recusal from a Karti matter.

Moneycontrol recorded the next listing as July 21, 2026. No published High Court order disposing of the quash plea has appeared after that recusal. No chargesheet in RC 22020253001 has been put out. Sequoia did not immediately respond when the FIR became public in January 2025.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The FIR date: The case was registered on January 1, 2025, on an inspector’s complaint after a May 29, 2018 preliminary enquiry into FIPB files.
• The two sums: The CBI alleges $15,000 from Diageo Scotland and ₹22.50 crore from Sequoia Capital Mauritius into ASCPL.
• The High Court: Karti and ASCPL seek quashing; Justice Sharma recused on April 28, 2026, and the matter was listed for July 21, 2026.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A chargesheet: None has been made public on this FIR.
• A quash order: No published ruling grants or refuses the plea after the recusal.
• The dollar date: The CBI document does not state when the $15,000 moved.

THE FILE FROM SCOTCHGATE TO RECUSAL

1. February 2005: ITDC freezes payment on 17 Diageo containers and Johnnie Walker leaves the duty-free shelves in a public pricing fight.
2. March 4, 2005: An ITDC source says the unpaid-goods dispute is resolved and price talks continue.
3. October 13, 2008: Sequoia Capital Mauritius applies to the FIPB to take up to 26% of Platinum Power Wealth Advisor Pvt. Ltd.
4. November 2008: P. Chidambaram, then finance minister, approves the Sequoia FDI file of ₹9.52 crore, the CBI says; he is not an accused.
5. May 29, 2018: CBI opens a preliminary enquiry into FIPB processing, naming Katra Holdings Ltd., Mauritius, ASCPL, Karti, Ravi Vishwananthan, Padma Vishwananthan, Bhaskararaman and unknown FIPB public servants.
6. January 1, 2025: FIR RC 22020253001 is registered; it becomes public in the following days.
7. January 10, 2025: Karti files a denial in a Delhi court and obtains three days’ prior notice of any arrest.
8. April 28, 2026: Justice Sharma recuses from the quash plea and the matter is placed before another bench, listed for July 21, 2026.

The recusal did not decide the delay argument, the 17A argument, or the whisky facts. It only moved the file.

Diageo, Sequoia and Vasan Share the FIR

Diageo Scotland is on the FIR as the alleged payer of the $15,000. For the British drinks group, the paper landed after Delhi anti-graft police had already opened a separate 2024 probe into billing and discount practices in the capital, a case the company has said it is cooperating with. The 2025 CBI document is a different file, built from the 2018 FIPB enquiry.

Sequoia’s Mauritius unit is on the same FIR for the share trail. The agency says Sequoia applied on October 13, 2008 to invest up to 26% in Platinum Power Wealth Advisor, and that the FIPB clearance for FDI of ₹9.52 crore was approved in 2008. At the time that file moved, the FIR says, shares of the Vasan group were not bought direct. They were routed through ASCPL “in order to benefit Karti,” with Sequoia paying ASCPL ₹22.50 crore at ₹7,500 a share against a purchase price of ₹30 lakh. That price works out to 30,000 shares, bought at a stated cost of ₹100 each.

WHO IS ON THE 2025 FIR

• Karti Chidambaram: Congress MP from Sivaganga, alleged to have been approached by Diageo and to control ASCPL with Bhaskararaman.
• S. Bhaskararaman: Named as Karti’s close aide and co-controller of ASCPL.
• ASCPL: The consultancy that, the CBI says, took the Diageo dollars and the Sequoia share money.
• Diageo Scotland, Sequoia Capital Mauritius, Vasan Healthcare: The three companies booked beside them.

Vasan is the Chennai healthcare group through which, the FIR says, the Sequoia-ASCPL share path ran. The 2018 enquiry also listed Katra Holdings Ltd. of Mauritius. Those FIPB names are how a whisky embargo from 2005 ended up in a 2025 FIR that also carries a 2008 FDI file.

Section 17A Arrived After the Enquiry Opened

Section 17A, inserted into the Prevention of Corruption Act from July 26, 2018, bars a police officer from starting an enquiry or investigation of a public servant over an official decision without prior approval of the competent government, except in an on-the-spot bribe arrest. Karti’s counsel says that approval was never taken, so the probe is bad.

The calendar cuts against a simple reading of that bar. The preliminary enquiry was registered on May 29, 2018, 58 days before Section 17A came into force. The FIR itself is dated January 1, 2025, long after the clause existed. Delhi High Court has, in other cases, treated 17A as not retrospective. On January 13, 2026, the Supreme Court split on whether 17A is valid at all, with one judge striking it down and another reading it down so that Lokpal or a Lokayukta, not the government, would decide approval; that fight was sent to a larger bench.

That is not a ruling on Karti’s Diageo FIR. It is the legal weather in which a 2018 enquiry, a 2025 FIR, and a 2026 recusal now sit. The CBI still has to show that $15,000 was paid to move public servants on a duty-free ban, and that the Sequoia share price was a quid for an FIPB nod. Karti still has to persuade a new bench that a 2004-2010 story filed in 2025, without a named officer and without 17A approval, cannot stand.

Until that bench speaks, Diageo’s unanswered $15,000 consultancy and Sequoia’s ₹22.50 crore share trail remain on one charge sheet, and the High Court file remains where Justice Sharma left it.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on a pending criminal investigation and a live High Court challenge. It is informational only and is not a finding of guilt or innocence. It does not constitute legal advice, and it is not a guide on how any accused, witness or company should plead or cooperate. Anyone with a direct legal interest in the FIR or the quash petitions should consult a qualified criminal lawyer in India before acting. Figures, charges, named parties and court dates reflect the CBI FIR, court filings and public orders described here and may change as the probe and the Delhi High Court plea proceed.