As senior Congress leader P Chidambaram heads to Supreme Court Monday to seek relief in the INX media case, the recent Delhi high court order that denied him bail has put spotlight once again on the quality and discrepancies involved in writing court judgments. The former finance minister has been in Tihar Jail in connection with the controversial INX Media case for the last two months. In the Enforcement Directorate (ED) matter against him, Chidambaram is accused of layering the alleged amount received through FIPB clearances given, during his tenure as the Finance Minister, through various shell companies abroad, bank accounts, and by generating fake invoices. On November 15, Justice Suresh Kumar Kait of the Delhi high court rejected Chidambaram’s bail application and accepted the arguments of the ED. However, after an examination of Justice Kait’s 41-page judgment, it has emerged that portions of the judgment pronounced on the matter bear striking resemblance to both a previous high court order as well as a Supreme Court decision on the bail plea of lawyer Rohit Tandon -- dated November 19, 2017 -- who is held in several money laundering cases. Not just that, but huge portions of the judgment appear to have reproduced the ED’s counter-affidavit verbatim, without an attempt to paraphrase the arguments. This emerged after Justice Kait’s order was uploaded late on Saturday evening. As reports of blatant copy-pasting began to circulate, Karti Chidambaram, son of the former finance minister posted a newspaper clipping with the caption :"cut, copy and paste". Cut, Copy, Paste. pic.twitter.com/8DTvVhjI9c — Karti P Chidambaram (@KartiPC) November 17, 2019 Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who represents Chidambaram, said they would raise this when the matter comes up in the Supreme Court on Monday. In fact, between paragraphs 35-49 of Justice Kait’s judgment, there are examples where paragraphs from Tandon’s judgment can be found quoted verbatim. In his order rejecting bail for Chidambaram, Justice Kait wrote, “It is alleged that during the period from 15.11.2016 to 19.11.2016 huge cash to the tune of Rs 31.75 crore was deposited in eight bank accounts in Kotak Mahindra Bank in the accounts of “group of companies”." The same line figures in an order by another judge of the high court while denying bail to Tandon, in May 2017. There are other common portions: “It (the ED) gives details of demand draft issued from 15.11.2016 to 19.11.2016 from eight bank accounts in the name of Sunil Kumar, Dinesh Kumar, Abhilasha Dubey, Madan Kumar, Madan Saini, Satya Narain Dagdi and Seema Bai on various dates. Most of the Demand Drafts issued have since been recovered.” And, “The statements recorded during investigation have evidentiary value under Section 50 PMLA. Prima facie, the version given by them is in consonance with the prosecution case. The prosecution has further relied upon call data records, CCTV footage. Account Trend Analysis.” The portions in Justice Kait’s order common to the Supreme Court decision on Tandon’s bail last year are: “…The stated activity allegedly indulged into by the accused named in the commission of predicate offence is replete with mens rea. In that, the concealment, possession, acquisition or use of the property by projecting or claiming it as untainted property and converting the same by bank drafts, would certainly come within the sweep of criminal activity relating to a scheduled offence. That would come within the meaning of Section 3 and punishable under Section 4 of the Act.” The High Court order denying bail to Chidambaram says: “The Economic offences in itself are considered to be the gravest offence against the society at large and hence are required to be treated differently in the matter of bail. The courts have successively held that a murder may be committed in the heat of moment upon passions being aroused. An economic offence is committed with cool calculation and deliberate design with an eye on personal profits regardless of the consequence to the community. A disregard for the interest of the community can be manifested only at the cost of forfeiting the trust and faith of the community in the system to administer justice in an even handed manner without fear of criticism from the quarters which view white collar crimes with a permissive eye, unmindful of the damage done to the national economy and national interest.”