The CBI has issued a statement in the Karti Chidambaram ‘illegal visa’ case

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday raided Karti Chidambaram’s official residence – 60 Lodhi Estate – for about five hours. The party reached the residence at around 10 am and left at around 3 pm. Karti Chidambaram’s residence was raided for illegally issuing visas to about 250 Chinese nationals for Rs 50 lakh, while his father P Chidambaram was home minister.

The CBI team conducted searches in about 10 places, including Chennai, Mumbai, Koppal (Karnataka), Jharsuguda (Orissa), Mansa (Punjab) and Delhi.

“I lost count, how many times has it happened? Must be a record,” Karti tweeted.

P Chidambaram also tweeted: “This morning, a CBI team searched my residence in Chennai and my official residence in Delhi. The team showed me an FIR so that my name was not charged. The search team found nothing and seized nothing. I can point out that the search time is interesting. “

This case is a branch of the ongoing investigation.

According to the CBI, a case has been registered against five accused, including “Chennai, Mumbai-based private individuals, non-governmental organizations based in Mumbai, Mansa (Punjab) and unknown government employees and individuals”.

The current case relates to a private company based in Mansa which is in the process of setting up a thermal power plant in Mansa, the contract of which was outsourced to a Chinese company. The project was running behind schedule and to avoid penalties, Mansa Private Company sought to include more Chinese individuals and professionals. However, visas were required with the permission of the Ministry of Home Affairs and for the purposes mentioned above.

By allowing visa re-use of 263 projects allocated to Chinese company officials, the company has created a backdoor way to defeat the purpose of the ceiling. The company representative submitted a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs for approval to reuse the project visa assigned to the company. According to the CBI, permission has been granted within a month.

“A Chennai-based private individual demanded a bribe of Rs 50 lakh through his close associate / front man, which was paid by the said Mansa-based private company,” the CBI said.

It was further alleged that the bribe was sent from a private company based in Mansa to a private person in Chennai and a close associate / front man through a Mumbai based company for consultation and payment of false invoices for out-of-pocket expenses. For Chinese visa-related work where the Mumbai-based private company has never been in a visa-related business, it was a completely different business in the industrial knife industry, ”he added.

During the ongoing probe against Karti, the CBI had warned of a case which is already under investigation by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) for the INX Media and Aircel Maxis cases, they said.

Read more: CBI searches Karti Chidambaram’s residence, 7 other places.