Chinese Visa bribery case: CBI questions Congress MP Karti Chidambaram for almost 9 hours

By PTI

NEW DELHI: The CBI on Thursday questioned Congress MP Karti Chidambaram for 9 hours in reference to an alleged rip-off pertaining to the issuance of visas to 263 Chinese nationals in 2011 when his father P Chidambaram was house minister, officers stated.

A particular courtroom had ordered Karti to hitch the CBI investigation inside 16 hours of his arrival from the UK and Europe, the place he had gone with the permission of the Supreme Court and the particular courtroom. The MP returned from his journey on Wednesday, and arrived on the CBI workplace round 8 this morning to reply questions associated to the case.

Speaking to reporters outdoors the CBI headquarters, Karti stated the case in opposition to him was “bogus”, and claimed that he had not facilitated the issuance of visa to any Chinese nationwide. He was allowed to go for a recess for about an hour in afternoon after which the questioning resumed.

The MP was quizzed until about 6 pm. Coming out of the extreme questioning, Karti Chidambaram stated all of it was a political vendetta, and that he would depose once more if the businesses name him.

The CBI FIR stated that the case pertains to the allegations of Rs 50 lakh being paid as bribe to Karti and his shut affiliate S Bhaskararaman by a high government of Vedanta group firm Talwandi Sabo Power Ltd. (TSPL), which was organising an influence plant in Punjab, for re-issuance of mission visas for 263 Chinese employees of a agency firm which was executing the mission.

The company has already taken Bhaskararaman in custody in reference to the case. Karti Chidambaram has denied all allegations, saying “if this is not harassment, not a witch-hunt, then what is”. Officials stated that the CBI has alleged Makharia, a consultant of the facility firm, approached Karti via his “close associate/front man” Bhaskararaman.

“They devised a back-door way to defeat the purpose of 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,” Joshi stated.

Makharia allegedly submitted a letter to the house ministry in search of approval to re-use the mission visas allotted to this firm, which was permitted inside a month and permission was granted to the corporate, the officers stated.

It has been additional alleged that the fee of the stated bribe was routed from Talwandi Sabo to Karti and Bhaskararaman via Mumbai-based Bell Tools Ltd camouflaged as fee of false bill raised for consultancy and out of pocket bills for Chinese visas associated works, the CBI FIR stated.

“…Whereas the private company based at Mumbai was never in any kind of work relating to visas rather it was in an entirely different business of industrial knives,” Joshi stated.