Visa scam case: Karti Chidambaram likely to appear before CBI on Wednesday

Congress MP Karti Chidambaram is likely to appear before the CBI on Wednesday to join investigation into an alleged scam pertaining to issuance of visa to 263 Chinese nationals in 2011 when his father P Chidambaram was the home minister officials saidKarti who has gone on a trip to the UK and Europe with the permission of the Supreme Court and a special CBI court is scheduled to return on TuesdayAccording to the special CBI courts order he has to join the CBI investigation within 16 hours of his return The case pertains to allegations of Rs 50 lakh being paid as bribe to Karti and his close associate S Bhaskararaman by a top executive of Vedanta group company Talwandi Sabo Power Ltd TSPL which was setting a power plant in Punjab the CBI FIR saidAccording to the CBI the work for setting up the power project was being executed by a Chinese company and was running behind scheduleA TSPL executive had sought reissuance of project visa for 263 Chinese workers for which Rs 50 lakh allegedly exchanged hands according to the CBI FIRKarti Chidambaram has denied all allegations and said if this is not harassment not a witch hunt then what isIn a statement issued on Tuesday he said I am heading back home today as was planned when I left 2 weeks ago for a work familyvisit trip to UK and Europe It does not intimidate me that the central government is once again using its agencies to accuse me of a malicious and completely fabricated chargePreviously the agencies have gone after me based on the statement of an undertrial murder suspect Now they are basing their bogus charges on the alleged actions of a deceased person whom I have never met I intend to continue to fight every one of their motivated attempts to target my father through me he saidThe MP said For what its worth however I firmly state that I am not associated with this visa issue directly indirectly vicariously or even telepathically The allegations against me by the CBI are ludicrous to say the least I categorically deny all of themThe agency has alleged that Bhaskararaman was approached by Vikas Makharia the then associate vice president of TSPL for the reissue of project visas for 263 Chinese workers working at the Mansabased power plantThe CBI FIR which contains the findings of the investigating officer who probed the PE has alleged that Makharia approached Karti through his close associatefront man Bhaskararaman the officials saidThey devised a backdoor way to defeat the purpose of ceiling maximum of project visas permissible to the companys plant by granting permission to reuse 263 project visas allotted to the said Chinese companys officials it was allegedProject visas were a special type of visa introduced in 2010 for the power and steel sector for which detailed guidelines were issued during P Chidambarams tenure as the home minister but there was no provision of reissue of project visas the FIR allegedAs per prevalent guidelines deviation in rare and exceptional cases could be considered and granted only with the approval of the home secretary However in view of the above circumstances the deviation in terms of reuse of project visas is likely to be approved by the then Home Minister it further allegedThe CBI in its FIR on May 14 has named as accused Karti Bhaskararaman Makharia Talwandi Sabo Power Limited TSPL and Mumbaibased Bell Tools Limited through which bribes were allegedly routedThe case was registered under IPC sections 120B criminal conspiracy and 477Afalsification of accounts and sections 8 and 9 of the Prevention of Corruption Act they saidMakharia allegedly submitted a letter to the home ministry on July 30 2011 seeking approval to reuse the project visas allotted to his company which was approved within a month and permission was issued the officials saidIt alleged that the payment of the bribe was routed from TSPL to Karti and Bhaskararaman through Mumbaibased Bell Tools Ltd with payments camouflaged under two invoices raised for consultancy and outofpocket expenses for works related to visas for the Chinese workersMakharia had later thanked Karti and Bhaskararaman on email it addedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever