Image: IANS
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Tuesday ordered framing of charges against Congress MP Karti P Chidambaram and six others in connection with a visa scam, holding that prime facie, a case was made out against them for criminal conspiracy and illegal gratification. The court, however, discharged the eighth accused, Chetan Shrivastava, after concluding that there was “no material evidence” on record against him.CBI had filed a chargesheet in Oct 2024 against Karti and the others, alleging bribery in facilitating visas for Chinese nationals for a power company, Talwandi Sabo Power Limited (TSPL), in 2011, when his father P Chidambaram was Union home minister.Special CBI judge Dig Vinay Singh of Rouse Avenue courts observed that there was enough material to proceed against the Sivaganga MP and six other accused for offences including criminal conspiracy, demand and receipt of bribe, destruction of evidence, and related charges. The judge noted the materials placed before the court pointed to ‘coordinated acts’ by the accused.Besides Karti, others chargesheeted in the case included his close associate S Bhaskararaman, TSPL and Mumbai-based Bell Tools Ltd, through which the bribe was routed.The court held that at the present stage of framing the charges, the statement of approver Vikas Makharia, who was the associate vice-president of TSPL, had to be accepted at face value and it could be examined during the trial. It further observed that the conspiracy between Karti and Bhaskararaman was evident, based on the evidence collected during the investigation.Tracing the sequence of events, the court noted that Makharia approached Karti through Bhaskararaman in Chennai seeking 800 additional project visas for TSPL, believing that he had access to home ministry. Bhaskararaman dema-nded and received a bribe of Rs 50 lakh. Subsequently, the approver (Makharia) telephonically thanked Ch-idambaram, who affirmed receipt of the amount. The court noted that although explicit words such as “payment” or “money” were avoided during the call, the acknowledgement was recorded. The court rejected the submissions made by Karti that he had “not read the emails” relied upon by the prosecution, or that there was “no substantiated proof” of a meeting in Chennai or any telephonic conversation.CBI had registered an FIR in the case in 2022. According to the agency, TSPL, a subsidiary of Vedanta, had outsourced work to a Chinese firm for its 1,980 MW thermal power plant coming up in Punjab. With the project facing penalties because of delays, the facilitation was sought for re-use of project visas, since there was a ceiling on project visas permissible for a company’s plant. The FIR said there was no provision for the re-issue of project visas.
