The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted interim protection to senior Congress leader P Chidambaram from arrest by the Enforcement Directorate till Thursday morning in connection with the INX Media case.

The apex court will continue to hear tomorrow the plea of Chidambaram against Delhi High Court’s order of dismissing his anticipatory bail petition in the case.

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Beginning his argument, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said: “We are concerned about the laundering aspect, and here we deal with very intelligent people, foolish people can’t launder”.

He said that the offence, which Chidamabaram is accused of committing, is never committed in the heat of the moment and is rather very well thought out crime and this makes the collection of evidence difficult.

Mehta further told the Supreme Court that Chidambaram was laundering money even on the day the complaint was registered against him.

The Enforcement Directorate told the apex court that specific information had been received from foreign banks which include inputs on former the Finance Minister’s properties abroad.

These included house numbers and companies which owned them.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted before a bench headed by Justice R. Banumathi: “As a result, we have issued Letters Rogatory in the matter… well crafted and layering of money laundering was adopted by the accused in this case.”

The ED refused to share its investigation report with Chidambaram as the chargesheet in the case was yet to be filed and urged the court to look into the report filed in a sealed envelope to decide his anticipatory bail plea.

Mehta revealed this information while addressing Chidambaram’s argument that the transaction happened before it was made an offence, which points at the retrospective applicability of PMLA law.

“We have robust material to show money laundering,” argued the ED counsel.

Mehta informed the court that the records in the case had been officially received and not manufactured or fabricated.

He insisted that it was the ED’s statutory right to arrest the accused. The ED Director had the right to arrest and many conditions are supposed to be met before an arrest is made.

Mehta told the court that the information received from various banks across the world cannot be made public in this case.

He told the court that in this case, the statute provides that material should be handed over to a neutral adjudicatory authority, to help in avoiding the probe agency tampering with them. These were statutory checks and balances involved in the process.

Chidambaram had on Tuesday filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court to deny allegations by the ED that he possessed properties abroad or had bank accounts bought with the money allegedly laundered the INX Media case.

The Supreme Court had on Tuesday extended till today protection from arrest by the ED granted to former finance minister P Chidambaram in the INX Media money laundering case.

The ED had told the top court that it needs custody of Chidambaram for interrogation while justifying the claim on the basis of the Delhi High Court order saying that the HC called him the kingpin.

Meanwhile, Chidambaram has told the top court that the probe agency ED wanted his arrest just to “humiliate” him.

P Chidambaram was arrested on the night of August 21 after the Delhi High Court rejected his pre-arrest bail.

The INX Media case relates to alleged irregularities in Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance given to the media group for foreign investment to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007 when Chidambaram was finance minister.

Chidambaram and his son were named by Peter and Indrani Mukerjea, who owned INX Media at the time and are currently in jail in connection with the murder of Indrani Mukerjea’s daughter Sheena Bora.