Chinese Visa scam: CBI court dismisses Karti Chidambaram's anticipatory bail plea

In a big setback for Karti Chidambaram, a Special CBI court on Friday dismissed the Congress MP's anticipatory bail application in the Chinese visa scam. Along with Karti Chidambaram, the Court also dismissed the bail pleas of two other accused - his associate S Bhaskar Raman and Vedanta's Vikas Makharia in the case. 

This came after the court on May 30 reserved the order on the anticipatory bail applications for June 3. Previously, Karti Chidambaram had withdrawn his plea seeking anticipatory bail in the case when a Delhi Court asked him to join the investigation within 16 hours of coming back to India. He returned from his visit to the UK and Europe on May 24, following which he was grilled at the CBI office on consecutive summons.

Embroiled in allegations pertaining to the 'bribe for visa' scam, the Lok Sabha MP has vowed to continue to fight all 'motivated attempts' to target his father and former Union Minister P Chidambaram. Karti has alleged that he has been raided six times in the last seven years and government agencies have turned into a 'medium of fulfilling a party's political vendetta'. 

"I have full faith in the judiciary of our great country and trust the institution to stand by the truth. But if this is not harassment, not a witch hunt, then what is?" he asked in a public statement.

Chinese Visa scam

The CBI registered a case against Karti Chidambaram, his chartered accountant S Bhaskararaman, Vikas Makharia, then associate vice president of thermal power plant Talwandi Sabo Power, Bell Tools Limited, and unknown public servants in connection with a Rs 50 lakh alleged bribery case for clearing visas of Chinese nationals working at Punjab's Talwandi Sobo Power Ltd during the UPA government.

According to the CBI FIR, Makharia approached the Congress MP through his close associate Bhaskararaman and the two devised a back-door way to defeat the purpose of the ceiling (maximum of project visas permissible to the company's plant), in exchange for a bribe.

The incident reportedly took place in 2011 when P Chidambaram was the Union Home Minister. A special type of visa called a Project visa was introduced in 2010 for the power and steel sector for which detailed guidelines were issued during P Chidambaram's tenure but there was no condition for reissuing of project visas, the CBI alleged.