The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday opposed in a Delhi court the anticipatory bail plea of former Union minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram in the Aircel-Maxis money laundering case and sought his custodial interrogation.

ED, which filed its response to the anticipatory bail plea of Chidambaram, said that he has remained evasive and was not cooperating in the probe.

The hearing on Chidambaram’s plea will take place before Special Judge O P Saini on Thursday.

A special court had on October 8 extended former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and his son Karti’s interim protection from arrest till November 1 in the Aircel-Maxis case.

Chidambaram had filed the plea for protection from arrest in the ED case on May 30 this year after which he got relief from the court on various occasions.

The probe agency on October 25 filed a supplementary chargesheet Chidambaram and eight others in Delhi’s Patiala House Court in the Aircel-Maxis money laundering case.

Read | Aircel-Maxis case: ED chargesheets P Chidambaram, 8 others

The court has fixed November 26 as the date for consideration on the chargesheet.

In its chargesheet filed earlier in the case against former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi Maran and others, the agency had alleged that Chidambaram had granted an FIPB approval in March 2006 to Mauritius-based Global Communication Services Holdings Ltd, a subsidiary of Maxis.

The CBI is probing as to how Chidambaram, who was the Union finance minister in 2006, granted a Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval to a foreign firm when only the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) was empowered to do it.

It is also alleged that Karti Chidambaram illegally took service charges for getting the FIPB clearance to the INX Media for receiving funds from abroad worth Rs 305 crore.

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”.

ED said the charges were based on evidence — emails retrieved from the digital devices of Chidambaram’s son, Karti, which revealed routing of the proceeds of crime in the guise of bonafide business deals by Maxis group to the companies of Karti.

ED probe revealed financial linkage of Karti and his father with these companies despite the “contradictory and evasive” responses of various people questioned in connection with the case.

Both P Chidambaram and Karti Chidambaram have denied the allegations levelled against them by the CBI and the ED.

(With PTI inputs)