A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Friday rejected anticipatory bail applications of Congress MP Karti Chidambaram and two others in a money laundering case connected with an alleged visa scam. The court had reserved its order after hearing the arguments last week. Other two applicants in the case were S Bhaskararaman and Vikas Makharia.
The development comes days after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had registered a money laundering case against Karti Chidamabaram and others in the Chinese visa scam case. As per ED, Karti had issued visas to as many as 263 Chinese nationals in 2011 when his father P Chidambaram was the Union Home Minister.
Bhaskararaman, Karti’s Charted Accountant, was recently held by CBI in the case. Earlier this week, the special CBI court extended the custody of S. Bhaskararaman. Karti was also interrogated by the CBI for three days.
As per an FIR filed recently, a Mansa (Punjab)-based private firm, Talwandi Sabo Power Limited, took the help of a middleman and allegedly paid Rs 50 lakh to get the visa issued for Chinese nationals to complete a project before the deadline.
“A bribe of Rs 50 lakh was demanded by the private person based at Chennai through his close associate which was paid by the Mansa-based private company,” CBI claimed.
Additionally, the CBI has also seized Karti’s confidential parliamentary papers and recovered 65,000 emails in the matter which will be used as evidence.
“The Mansa (Punjab) based private firm was in the process of establishing a 1,980 MW thermal power plant and establishing of plant was outsourced to a Chinese company. The project was running behind its schedule. In order to avoid penal actions for the delay, the said private company was trying to bring more and more Chinese persons, professionals for their site at district Mansa (Punjab) and needed Project VISAs over and above the ceiling imposed by Ministry of Home Affairs,” news agency IANS quoted a CBI official as saying.