case against 5 including Karti Chidambaram, for getting visa to Chinese citizens by taking bribe

New Delhi. The CBI has registered a case against former Finance Minister P Chidambaram's son and MP Karti Chidambaram and 4 others for illegally granting visas to Chinese nationals working in Chinese companies. These people used to provide project visas to people in excess of the limit set by the Ministry of Home Affairs by taking bribe from Chinese citizens working in Chinese companies. That too when Karti Chidambaram's father was a minister at the Centre. That is, using the post of father, Karti Chidambaram provided visa by allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 50 lakh from Chinese citizens.

According to the news of ANI, the four people who have been identified are S Bhaskararaman, close associate of Karti Chidambaram in Chennai, Vikas Makhadia, representative of private company based in Mansa, Punjab, representative of M/s Talwandi Sabo Power Limited in Mansa itself, M/s Bell. Unknown public servant and private person in Tools Ltd. Mumbai and others.

Got visa to 263 citizens by taking 50 lakhs while father's minister

According to the CBI, Karti Chidambaram along with his associates helped 263 Chinese nationals get visas for the power company in Punjab. Officials said Karti is accused of getting visas to Chinese nationals after taking a bribe of Rs 50 lakh in 2011. Karti's father P Chidambaram was the Union Home Minister at that time. After registering the FIR, the CBI team this morning conducted simultaneous raids at 10 locations in several cities of the country, including the residences of Chidambaram father-son duo in Delhi and Chennai, officials said. The CBI had found some documents of suspicious transactions worth Rs 50 lakh from the hard drive of Bhaskararaman's computer, on the basis of which the agency had registered a preliminary inquiry. In the findings of the preliminary investigation, there was prima facie sufficient material to register an FIR.

this is the charge

In the case registered by the CBI, it is alleged that a 1980 MW thermal power plant was to be set up under the Talwandi Sabo power project in Mansa, Punjab. When the plant was set up, it was outsourced to a Chinese company. It has been alleged that this project has been delayed much ahead of time i.e. the project has been prolonged. To avoid action due to delay, Mansa granted project visas in excess of the limit set by the Ministry of Home Affairs to bring more and more Chinese nationals and professionals to the Mansa site. The CBI has alleged that Makharia, a representative of the power company, contacted Karti through his close aide Bhaskararaman.

He created a 'backdoor' way to defeat the purpose of visa ceiling (the maximum number of project visas permissible for a company's plant) by allowing the reuse of 263 project visas allotted to the executives of the said Chinese company. Makharia reportedly submitted a letter to the home ministry seeking approval for reuse of the project visa allotted to this company, which was approved within a month and permission was issued to the company.