What Is The Chinese Visa Scam In Which Karti Chidambaram Is Facing CBI Heat

New Delhi: The CBI has charged Congress MP Karti Chidambaram with accepting a bribe of Rs 50 lakh from a Vedanta Group company to facilitate visas for 263 Chinese workers of a company collaborating with a Vedanta Group subsidiary for a power project in Punjab.

The CBI FIR has alleged that Rs 50 lakh was paid as bribe to Karti and his close associate S Bhaskararaman by a top executive of Vedanta Group company Talwandi Sabo Power Ltd (TSPL), which was setting up the power plant in Punjab, to re-issue project visas to 263 Chinese workers working on the project.

The work, being executed by the Chinese company, was running behind schedule and TSPL wanted the project visas of the 263 Chinese workers reissued.

Bhaskararaman is already in CBI’s custody.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had stumbled on evidence of the alleged bribe in 2018 and alerted the CBI. That year, the ED sent a letter to the CBI, saying that during its probe against the Chidambarams in the INX Media case, it found evidence that the Vedanta Group offered Rs 50 lakh to a company allegedly associated with Karti to facilitate visas for the Chinese workers.

P Chidambaram was the Union Home Minister then. He has not been named in the FIR.

The ED said the money offer was made to Bhaskararaman in 2011. While no reference was made on where and how this money was paid, the agency said the visas were eventually granted.

Karti Chidambaram, who appeared before the CBI on Thursday, denied the allegations and said that he had not facilitated a single Chinese national in getting a visa.

Besides Karti Chidambaram and Bhaskararaman, the CBI FIR has named Talwandi Sabo Power Ltd (TSPL), a Mansa-based company; Vikas Makharia (a Talwandi Sabo representative); Bell Tools Ltd, Mumbai; and “unknown public servants and private individuals”.

After the CBI booked Karti Chidambaram, the ED has also booked him in a case of money laundering.