Congress MP Karti P Chidambaram and six others will now be charged in connection with the Chinese visa fraud case, a Delhi court ordered on Tuesday.
Karti Chidambaram and seven others were charged with alleged bribery in arranging visas for Chinese nationals of an energy company in 2011.
According to a PTI report, Special Judge (CBI) Dig Vinay Singh ordered the framing of charges against seven accused, including Chidambaram, and acquitted one, Chetan Shrivastava, in the case.
Citing an order dated December 23, PTI said the court ordered the framing of charges against the seven accused for the alleged offense of conspiracy.
A detailed order is pending.
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What is the case of Chinese visa fraud?
In October 2024, the CBI filed charges against Karti Chidambaram and others in connection with alleged bribery in arranging visas for Chinese nationals for an energy company in 2011 when his father P Chidambaram was the Union Home Minister.
In its chargesheet before the special court, the CBI named Karti Chidambaram, Lok Sabha MP from Sivaganga, his alleged close associate S Bhaskararaman, Talawandi Sabo Power Ltd (TSPL), a subsidiary of Vedanta, and Mumbai-based Bell Tools through which the bribes were allegedly channeled.
The agency has filed charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery under the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The other accused include Viral Mehta, Anup Agarwal, Mansoor Siddiqui and Chetan Shrivastava, they said.
The CBI filed the chargesheet after two years of investigation in its FIR registered in 2022, alleging that Punjab-based TSPL was setting up a 1,980 MW thermal power plant and the work was being awarded to China’s Shandong Electric Power Construction Corp (SEPCO).
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The project was delayed and the company was allegedly threatened with sanctions.
The CBI FIR, which contained the findings of the investigating officer who conducted the preliminary investigation, alleged that a TSPL executive had approached Karti Chidambaram through his “close associate/frontman” Bhaskararaman.
“They devised a backdoor to defeat the purpose of the cap (maximum number of project visas allowed for a company’s plant) by granting permission to reuse 263 project visas granted to officials of the said Chinese company,” the agency said after registering the FIR and searches.
Project visas were a special type of visa introduced in 2010 for the power and steel sector for which detailed guidelines were issued during P Chidambaram’s tenure as home minister, but there was no provision for the re-issuance of project visas, according to the FIR.
The TSPL executive allegedly sent 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 FIR alleged.
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“On August 17, 2011, the Executive, on the instructions of Bhaskararaman, sent him a copy of the above letter dated July 30, 2011 through an e-mail which was forwarded to Karti… Bhakaskararaman, after discussion with P Chidambaram, the then Home Minister, demanded illegal gratification ₹50 lakh for securing approval,” the FIR claimed.
The FIR also alleged that payment of the said bribe was routed from TSP to Karti Chidambaram and Bhaskararaman through Mumbai-based Bell Tools Ltd with the payments masked under two invoices drawn for consultancy and out-of-pocket expenses for work related to the Chinese emails, the CBI FIR said, adding that the managing director of TSPL later thanked and B. Karti Chidambaram
Payment against the invoices was made by TSPL to Bell Tools Limited through check and then the said amount was paid in cash to Bhaskararaman, it claimed.
