NEW DELHI: The CBI has filed an FIR against Congress MP Karti Chidambaram and four others and conducted nationwide raids on his properties in connection with its probe in a case where the ministry of home affairs issued visas to over 250 Chinese professionals, working at a power project in Punjab.
The case goes back to 2011 when visas were issued within a month of the application being made and were beyond the permissible limit.
In a statement, the CBI alleged that the application was made following a meeting between a power firm executive and a “private person” in Chennai.
The agency had initiated a preliminary enquiry into the allegations in March and the FIR was lodged on May 14. It alleged that Talwandi Sabo Power Ltd (TSPL), a Mansa-based company, had outsourced the setting up of a plant to a Chinese firm, which was trying to get more professionals from across the border to avoid paying a penalty for delayed execution.
According to officials, the company needed project visas over and above the ceiling imposed by the MHA. The firm then approached a “Chennai-based person” after which they devised a backdoor way to “bypass the ceiling” by getting MHA's permission to re-use 263 project visas allotted to the Chinese company executives.
The approval, the CBI said, came within a month allegedly in lieu of a bribe of Rs 50 lakh, which was routed through a Mumbai-based firm involved in selling industrial knives.
Former Union home minister P Chidambaram tweeted on raids on Tuesday morning: “This morning, a CBI team searched my residence at Chennai and my official residence at Delhi. The team showed me an FIR in which I am not named as an accused. The search team found nothing and seized nothing. I may point out that the timing of the search is interesting.”
His son Karti too tweeted on the raid at his establishments. “I have lost count, how many times has it been? Must be a record. My office has just updated on the ‘record’ twice in 2015, once in 2017, twice in 2018 & today :) 6! (sic),” he said.
Apart from Karti, the CBI in its FIR has named his close associate and chartered accountant S Bhaskararaman, Vikas Makharia, a representative of TSPL and the two firms -- Bell Tools, Mumbai and TSPL, Punjab. The FIR also named unidentified public servants and some yet to be identified private persons.
“The searches at our Punjab facility have been part of a larger CBI investigation. We are extending full cooperation to the authorities and facilitating the due process. We have no further comments,” a TSPL spokesperson said.
In the FIR, the CBI alleged that the payment of bribe was routed from Mansa-based private company to the “private person” in Chennai and his close associate through a Mumbai-based company as payment of false invoice raised for consultancy and ‘out of pocket’ expenses for work related to Chinese visas. It also alleged that the Mumbai-based company did not ever undertake visa-related work and was in an entirely different business – dealing with industrial knives. Searches were conducted around 10 places, including in Chennai, Mumbai, Koppal (Karnataka), Jharsuguda (Orissa), Mansa and Delhi.
