E-Paper
Visa case: Karti Chidambaram files anticipatory bail plea in Delhi high court
According to ED, Karti Chidambaram is accused of allegedly receiving ₹50 lakh bribe in exchange for issuing visas to 263 Chinese nationals to be allowed to work on a power project in Punjab. The visas were allegedly issued in 2011 when his father P Chidambaram was the union home minister.
Congress MP Karti Chidambaram on Saturday moved the Delhi high court seeking anticipatory bail in the case registered by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the alleged Chinese visa scam, PTI reported. The bail application comes day after the trial court dismissed his anticipatory bail plea.
On Friday, the trial court had rejected the bail plea of Karti Chidambaram and two others saying that the offence was very serious in nature. The court had also vacated the interim protection from arrest granted to the accused during the pendency of the bail plea.
The ED hadbooked Karti Chidambaram and others in connection for money laundering in the case pertaining to the issuance of visas to 263 Chinese nationals to work on a project in Punjab in 2011. The probe agency had alleged that Karti took ₹50 lakh bribes in exchange for the visas which were granted when his father P Chidambaram was the union home minister in the Congress-led UPA government.
The court had also noted that there were four other cases - two by CBI and two by the ED concerning both alleged INX Media and Aircel-Maxis scams - pending before it, and both Karti and Bhaskararaman were even arrested in one of such cases and were subsequently granted regular bail, though anticipatory bail was granted to them in the other cases.
The ED's counsel had contended that even in the previous cases, a similar modus operandi was adopted in granting approvals for some financial transactions against the existing guidelines and policies for illegal considerations or bribes.
Bhaskararaman was also involved in transactions of those cases for payment of a bribe to Karti for influencing his father, who was holding another portfolio of union minister at that time, for granting those approvals, the counsel alleged.
Therefore, the allegations in the CBI case, based upon which the ED lodged its case, cannot be brushed aside or taken lightly, the trial court had said.
(With PTI inputs)
