Karti Chidambaram’s Jor Bagh property on CBI radar, CA sent to 4-day CBI custody

New Delhi | S. Bhaskararaman, the charted accountant of Karti Chidambram, was remanded to four-day CBI custody by the Rouse Avenue Court here on Thursday, as the probe agecy intends to to recover few emails and information related to a Jor Bagh property belonging to Karti Chidambram.

The CBI had arrested Bhaskararaman on Wednesday after hours of questioning in connection with the fresh ‘bribe for visas’ case.

The CBI had moved a plea before the court seeking 14-day remamd of Bhaskararaman.

The CBI told the court that a sales deed recovered during the raids was important.

“This sales deed is of a property bought in Jor Bagh and the power of attorney is in the name of Bhaskararaman, wherreas the property was purchased by Karti Chidambram and his mother,” the CBI said.

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The CBI told the court that a long list of materials has to be recovered from Bhaskararaman and that their search operation was still on.

The CBI accused Bhaskararaman for being non-coperative and working at the behest of Karti Chidambaram.

“We also have to recover a long trail of emails,” the CBI said.

The counsel appearing for Bhaskararaman aruged that there was no need to grant custody as all the emails were obtained in the INX Media case by the probe agency.

Bhaskararaman gave emails and passwords of two different IDs. The counsel also said that Bhaskararaman was never summoned during the course of preliminary inquiry.

After hearing both the sides, the judge granted four-day custody of Bhaskararaman.

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Bhaskararaman was arrested by the CBI on Wednesday from Chennai in connection with a case lodged against him and others for allegedly helping Chinese nationals get visas by flouting the rules.

On Wednesday, he was produced before a local court in Chennai which sent him to one-day transit remand.

On Tuesday, the federal probe agency had conducted raids at 10 locations across the nation, including the house of former Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram, father of Karti Chidambaram.

Later that day, Chidambaram had criticised the CBI’s move saying he wasn’t named in the FIR.

A senior CBI official said that Karti Chidambaram and Bhaskararaman have been named as accused in the case, along with others, including private firms. It is said that senior Chidambaram allegedly helped them.

According to the FIR, a Mansa (Punjab) based privite firm, Talwandi Sabo Power Limited, took help of a middleman and allegedly paid Rs 50 lakh to get visas issued to Chinse nationls which would help it complete a project before the deadline.

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“The private firm was in the process of establishing a 1,980 MW thermal power plant the work for which 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 and more Chinese professionals to its site for which it needed project visas over and above the ceiling imposed by the Ministry of Home Affairs,” said the CBI official.

The official said that for the said purpose, the representative of the private company approached a person based in Chennai through his close associate and thereafter they devised a back-door strategy to defeat the purpose of visa ceiling by granting permission to re-use 263 project visas allotted to the said Chinese company.

In pursuance of the same, the private company submitted a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs seeking approval to re-use 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 private person in Chennai through his close associate which was paid by the said Mansa-based private firm.

By IANS

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