Chinese Visa Scam: ED Raids Six Places In Chennai In Case Linked To Karti Chidambaram

However, the raids were not conducted at Karti Chidambaram's house. 

Chennai: The Enforcement Directorate started to raid six places linked to Congress leader Karti Chidambaram in Chennai in connection with Chinese Visa Scam case. However, the raids were not conducted at Karti Chidambaram's house. 

The case is about the alleged irregularities while issuing visas to 263 Chinese nationals in 2011. It was alleged that Rs 50 lakh was paid to Karti and his close associate Bhaskararaman by Talwandi Sabo Power Ltd. for setting up a power plant in Punjab.

The ED first initiated a probe in May under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on an FIR registered by CBI. 

The Mansa (Punjab) based private firm was in the process of establishing a 1,980 MW thermal power plant and the establishment of the plant was outsourced to a Chinese company. The project was running behind its schedule. In order to avoid penal actions for the delay, the said private company was trying to bring more Chinese persons, professionals for their site at district Mansa (Punjab) and needed Project Visas over and above the ceiling imposed by the Ministry of Home Affairs," the CBI has alleged in the FIR.

The CBI has alleged that for the said purpose, the representative of the said private company approached a person based at Chennai through his close associate and thereafter they devised a backdoor way to defeat the purpose of ceiling (maximum of Project Visas permissible to the company's plant) by granting permission to re-use 263 Project Visas allotted to the said Chinese company's officials.

In pursuance of the same, the said representative of the Mansa-based private company submitted a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs seeking approval to reuse the Project Visas allotted to this company, which was approved within a month and permission was issued to the company.

"A bribe of Rs 50 lakh was allegedly demanded by the said private person based at Chennai through his close associate, which was paid by the said Mansa-based private company. The payment of said bribe was routed from Mansa-based private company to the said private person of Chennai and his close associate through a Mumbai-based company as payment of false invoice raised for Consultancy and out of pocket expenses for the Chinese Visas related works whereas the private company based at Mumbai was never in any kind of work relating to Visas rather it was in an entirely different business of industrial knives," the CBI has alleged.

(With IANS inputs)