Chidambaram not the first neta to be put behind bars

Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram became the latest entrant in the list of high-profile people to have been put behind bars when the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested him on Wednesday in the INX media case.

The 73-year-old will be questioned in the case which was filed by the agency in 2017, alleging irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance granted to a media group for receiving overseas funds of Rs 305 crore in 2007 when he was the finance minister.

Chidambaram, who also served as the home minister, was arrested on Wednesday after the Supreme Court decided to hear only on Friday his petition seeking a stay on a Delhi high court order on Tuesday that dismissed his anticipatory bail plea in the case.

Following are the names of some high-profile people who have been put behind the bars:

>> Amit Shah

The now Union Home Minister was arrested in 2010 in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case. He was subsequently acquitted.

>> Lalu Prasad Yadav

The 71-year-old former Bihar chief minister and railways minister is in jail in Ranchi after being found guilty in multi-crore fodder scam cases.

In April 2019, the apex court dismissed his bail plea and rejected his arguments that he has been in jail for 24 months, saying that in comparison to the 14-year sentence awarded to him, 24 months was nothing.

The three cases in which Prasad has been convicted are related to the over Rs 900-crore fodder scam, which pertains to fraudulent withdrawal of money from treasuries in the animal husbandry department in early 1990s when Jharkhand was part of Bihar.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal was in power in the state with Prasad as the chief minister when the scam allegedly took place. He is lodged in the Birsa Munda Central Jail in Ranchi.

>> J Jayalalithaa

She was arrested in 1996 after Subramanian Swamy, then Janata Party chief, filed a case against her alleging that during her tenure as the Tamil Nadu chief minister from 1991 to 1996, she amassed properties worth Rs 66.65 crore, disproportionate to her known sources of income.

In September 2014, Jayalalithaa and three others including her aide Sasikala were convicted in the disproportionate assets case. She was sentenced to four years in jail and fined Rs 100 crore.

The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief, after securing bail, returned to Chennai in October 2014 after spending 21 days in the Bangalore Central Jail. She died in December 2016 at the age of 68 after a prolonged illness in Chennai.

>> A Raja

The 55-year-old former telecom minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazagham leader was arrested on February 2, 2011 and got bail from the trial court on May 12, 2012 after spending 15 months in Delhi's Tihar jail in the high-profile 2G spectrum scam.

Raja, who was the minister in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government when 122 telecom spectrum licences were issued to eight companies in 2008 on first-come-first-serve basis, was acquitted by a special court in 2017.

>> Kanimozhi

The 51-year-old daughter of DMK chief M Karunanidhi was in jail for six months from May 21, 2011 to November 28, 2011 in the politically-sensitive 2G spectrum allocation scam case.

She was acquitted by a special court in 2017 which held that the prosecution miserably failed to prove the charges.

>> B S Yeddyurappa

The BJP's first chief minister in South India was arrested in October, 2011 after a special Lokayukta court charged him in case of alleged irregularities in denotifying government land. He was released after spending 25 days in jail in 2011.

Yeddyurappa, who had led the BJP to its first-ever government in the south in the 2008 assembly polls, was forced to resign as Karnataka chief minister in August 2011 following indictment by then Lokayukta Santosh Hegde in the Bellary illegal mining case.

The 76-year-old was acquitted in 2016 by a special CBI Court in a corruption case related to illegal mining in Bellary that allegedly involved a bribery amount of Rs 40 crore.

>> Suresh Kalmadi

The 75-year-old former president of the Indian Olympic Association and chairman of Commonwealth Games 2010 was arrested by the CBI in April 2011 for his alleged involvement in the Commonwealth Games scam.

The former minister of state for railways was arrested on charges of cheating, conspiracy and corruption in the award of games-related contracts. He walked out of Delhi's Tihar jail in 2012 after spending nine months behind bars. After his arrest, the Congress suspended him.

>> Amar Singh

The 63-year-old former Samajwadi Party heavyweight and Rajya Sabha MP was sent to 13-day judicial custody in September 2011 for his alleged involvement in the sensational 2008 cash-for-votes scam.

Singh was denied bail and taken into custody after the court sent him to Delhi's Tihar jail in the case in which he has been chargesheeted by the Delhi Police.

>> Bangaru Laxman 

The former Bharatiya Janata Party chief was in 2012 sentenced to four years in jail by a Delhi court for taking a bribe of Rs one lakh in a fictitious arms deal case.

Laxman, born in Andhra Pradesh in 1939, was the president of the BJP from 2000 to 2001 and served as a minister of state for railways from 1999 to 2000.

In April 2012, he was held guilty of taking a bribe from fake arms dealers to recommend the Defence Ministry to award them a contract for supplying thermal binoculars to the Army. Bangaru died in 2014 at the age of 74.