The Enforcement Directorate has attached Rs 54 crore worth of assets belonging to Congress leader P. Chidambaram’s son Karti in India, Britain and Spain in connection with a money-laundering case.

Karti is accused of accepting a bribe from a media company to get a huge chunk of foreign investment cleared in 2007, when his father was finance minister.

The agency said on Thursday it had issued an order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act for attaching Karti’s farmland and bungalow in Kodaikanal and Ooty, Tamil Nadu, and a flat in Delhi's Jorbagh.

Among the foreign properties attached are a cottage, stone barn and land in Somerset besides a tennis club and land in Barcelona.

The agency said all the assets were in the name of Karti and Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited, a firm allegedly linked to him.

Fixed deposits worth Rs 90 lakh in the company’s name and Rs 9.23 crore in Karti's name with the Indian Overseas Bank have also been attached.

Karti termed the attachments “bizarre and outlandish” and tweeted: “This is meant only to grab headlines. The order will not withstand judicial scrutiny, review or appeal. Will approach the appropriate legal forum.”

The directorate’s case is based on an FIR the CBI had registered in May last year accusing Karti and others of corruption, cheating and criminal conspiracy.

According to the CBI, INX Media, then helmed by Peter Mukerjea and his now estranged wife Indrani, had clearance only for Rs 4.62 crore in FDI but received an additional Rs 305 crore FDI from the same set of investors without approval.

The FIR says the media house approached Karti when the income-tax department launched a probe. It alleges that Karti obtained the Foreign Investment Promotion Board's clearance for the entire FDI amount against a Rs 10-lakh bribe.