S Bhaskararaman is a chartered accountant who was arrested late on May 17 night after hours of questioning

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New Delhi, May 18

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested close aide of Karti Chidambaram, S Bhaskararaman, in connection with the gratification for Chinese VISAs case. Bhaskararaman is a chartered accountant who was arrested late on May 17 night after hours of questioning.

The CBI FIR mentioned the accused as Karti, Bhaskararaman, Talwandi Sabo Power Limited, Mansa, Vikas Makharia, a Talwandi Sabo representative, and Bell Tools Limited, Mumbai.

The CBI had conducted searches at various locations including residences of Union minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti in Chennai and New Delhi.

The searches were conducted at 10 locations in Chennai, Mumbai, Koppal (Karnataka), Jharsuguda (Orissa), Mansa (Punjab) and Delhi.

The CBI mentioned in the FIR that Karti accepted a bribe of Rs 50 lakhs from the Vedanta Group to facilitate visas for 300 Chinese nationals of a company working in collaboration with a Vedanta subsidiary for a power project in Punjab.

 “P Chidambaram had been on the board of Vedanta Group whereas his son Karti P Chidambaram had taken financial favour from M/s Sterlite Optical Technologies Limited, Mumbai (a Vedanta Group Company), which had lent Rs 1.5 crore in November 2003 to his company namely M/s Meltraack India Limited, Chennai and the interest thereupon was waived-off in August 2004 (when P Chidambaram was sworn in as the finance minister, Govt. of India),” the CBI FIR mentioned. 

The CBI FIR further mentioned, “S Bhaskararaman, after discussion with P Chidambaram, the then Home Minister, demanded an illegal gratification of Rs 50 lakh for ensuring the above said approval.”

Talwandi Sabo Power Project is a coal-based, super-critical thermal power plant located at Banawala village in Punjab’s Mansa district. The power plant is operated by the TSPL, a subsidiary of Vedanta.

However, as the project was running behind schedule, Talwandi Sabo tried to bring more Chinese professionals to their site at Mansa in order to avoid penal action for delay. For this, it needed project visas over and above the ceiling imposed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the CBI alleged in its FIR.

The CBI in their official statement stated, “It has been alleged that in pursuance of the same, the said representative of Mansa-based private company (Talwandi Sabo) submitted a letter to the MHA, 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”. 

This bribe was eventually paid to Karti through a Mumbai-based company. 

The case is based on a reference sent by ED to the CBI in 2018. The letter had claimed that during its probe against the Chidambarams in the INX Media case, it had stumbled upon evidence that a company, allegedly associated with Karti, was offered Rs 50 lakh by Vedanta group to facilitate visas for 300 Chinese nationals when P Chidambaram was the Union home minister.

The case was registered on the basis of a reference sent by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) way back in 2018. Notably, it was from Bhaskararaman’s laptop that ED had retrieved an email that discussed demand of Rs 50 lakhs from Vedanta for facilitating visas for the Chinese nationals.

The ED had alleged that Vedanta group had made the offer to Bhaskararaman in 2011. The ED assertions were based on email communications it had retrieved from the hard disk of Bhaskararaman’s laptop.