The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday filed a supplementary chargesheet in a Delhi court against senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram accusing him of conspiring with foreign investors and giving them clearance for a venture as Union finance minister in the then UPA government.

The move came a day before agency director Karnal Singh is due to retire.

The ED had earlier in June filed the first chargesheet in the case against Chidambaram’s son Karti, claiming that he controlled two firms that are alleged to have received bribes in the money-laundering case involving the Rs 3,500-crore Aircel-Maxis deal.

Thursday’s supplementary chargesheet also named eight others, including five entities: S. Bhaskaraman (Karti’s chartered accountant), V. Srinivasan (former CEO of Aircel), Augustus Ralph Marshall (associated with Maxis), Astro All Asia Networks Plc Malaysia, Aircel Televentures Ltd, Maxis Mobile Services Sdn Bhd, Bumi Armada Berhad and Bumi Armada Navigation Sdn Bhd.

They are all accused of laundering Rs 1.16 crore in lieu of illegal (FIPB) approval for foreign investment given by the former minister in March 2006 to Global Communication and Services Holdings Limited, Mauritius.

“As per rules and the FDI policy of the Government of India in 2006, Chidambaram, the then finance minister, was empowered to give approval of the foreign investment to the proposals involving foreign investment up to Rs 600 crore only. The foreign investment proposal of Global Communication and Services Holdings Limited should have been referred to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) but it was not done and approved by Chidambaram under a conspiracy,” the ED said in its supplementary chargesheet.

The agency said the chargesheet was based on email communications retrieved from digital devices seized from Karti and his associates and that investigations had revealed Karti’s and Chidambaram’s financial links with these companies.

Special judge O.P. Saini has fixed November 26 for consideration of the chargesheet.

Sources said the finance ministry had recently recommended to the Centre that ED director Singh, who is due to retire on Friday, be given an extension.

“No final decision has been taken by the government whether to give him an extension or not. The file is still with the PMO,” a senior ED official told The Telegraph.

Chidambaram, who is also being probed by the CBI in connection with the deal, had earlier accused the Narendra Modi government of using multiple agencies to “silence” him and “target” his son.

“We are witnessing the implosion of the investigating agencies. Who is responsible for sowing the seeds of destruction in the last four years?” he said in a tweet on Thursday, referring to the ugly turf war within the CBI that saw its top two officers benched on Wednesday.

Rakesh Asthana, the benched CBI special director who is facing a bribery charge, had been supervising the probe into the two cases and had earlier summoned Chidambaram several times for questioning.

Chidambaram’s role has also come under the scanner of the two agencies in the INX Media case involving Rs 305 crore. Delhi High Court on Thursday extended till November 29 Chidambaram’s interim protection from arrest in the INX Media case, PTI reported.

In a setback to the CBI and the ED last year, a special court in Delhi had dropped corruption charges against former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi Maran and others in the Aircel-Maxis deal, saying the materials placed by the two agencies were not enough to prosecute them.

That was the first instance when the accused had been discharged in the high-profile corruption cases that were registered during the UPA regime under the Supreme Court’s directions.

A trial court had later acquitted former telecom minister A. Raja and others in the 2G spectrum allocation controversy.

Trials in another controversy involving allocation of coal blocks are at an advanced stage.