CBI books Karti Chidambaram for facilitating Visas to Chinese nationals

Chennai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday registered a case against Karti Chidambaram, Congress MP and son of former Union minister P. Chidambaram, and four others in a visa scam. It is being alleged that they took bribes to facilitate the issuance of Visas to a Chinese company.

Searches are being conducted at around 10 places, including in Chennai, Mumbai, Koppal (Karnataka), Jharsuguda(Odisha), Mansa (Punjab), and Delhi, the CBI said.

A case has been registered against Karti Chidambaram and four others, including his close associate S. Bhaskararaman, Vikas Makharia of Mansa (Punjab) based private company, Talwandi Sabo Power Limited of Mansa (Punjab), Bell Tools Limited of Mumbai (Maharashtra), and unknown public servants and private persons.

It has been alleged that the Mansa-based private company was in the process of establishing a 1980 MW thermal power plant at Mansa in Punjab. The establishment of the plant was outsourced to a Chinese company. It has been further alleged that the project was running behind schedule. In order to avoid penal actions for the delay, the private company tried to bring more Chinese persons/professionals to Mansa. To do so they needed project Visas over and above the ceiling imposed by the ministry of Home Affairs.

The representative of the private company approached a person based in Chennai through his close associate/frontman and thereafter they devised a back-door way to defeat the purpose of the ceiling (maximum of project Visas permissible to the company's plant) by granting permission to re-use 263 project Visas allotted to the said Chinese company's officials.

The representative of the Mansa-based company submitted a letter to the ministry of Home Affairs seeking approval to re-use the project Visas allotted to the company. It was approved within a month and permission was issued to the company. A bribe of Rs. 50 lakh was allegedly demanded by the private person based in Chennai which was paid by the company.

It has been further alleged that the payment of the bribe was routed from the Mansa firm to the private person in Chennai and his close associate/frontman through a Mumbai-based company as payment of a false invoice raised for consultancy and out of pocket expenses for Chinese Visa-related works. However, the private company based in Mumbai was never in any kind of work relating to Visas, rather it was in the business of industrial knives.