Bribes for Visa: Special court denies anticipatory bail to Karti in ED case

Plea seeking that order be kept in abeyance for 7 days to allow HC challenge also dismissed

A Special CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) court on Friday dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of Congress MP Karti Chidambaram in the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) money-laundering case in relation to the CBI's bribes for visa scam probe.

Special Judge M.K. Nagpal on Friday also dismissed the anticipatory bail pleas of co-accused S. Bhaskararaman (Karti's Chartered Accountant) and Vikas Makharia, the representative of the Mansa-based company, who is accused of approaching Mr. Bhaskararaman and paying him the bribe amount for getting the approval to reuse the project visas.

The court noted that if anticipatory bail is granted to the three accused in this case at this "nascent stage", "then their conduct and behaviour during investigation is bound to change and they may not provide any useful information to the investigating agency... interrogation of the accused armed with anticipatory bail order will stand reduced to a mere ritual than the investigation."

In addition, the court noted the gravity of the offence the three were accused of, saying, "sufficient evidence is stated to have already been collected in the said case to show generation of proceeds of crime in the form of above bribe amount and its payment and all the three applicants are alleged to be involved in the above transaction, along with some other co-accused who are yet to be identified."

On the gravity of the offences, the court said that the Project Visas were supposed to be approved only after the mandated security checks, which included screening by the Intelligence Bureau (IB).

"However, in the instant case, even despite there being no specific provision contained in the said guidelines for permitting reuse of Project Visas, approval for re-use of more than 250 Project Visas to Chinese Nationals was granted blanketly against payment or acceptance of a bribe amount of ₹50 lakh and not only a threat was posed to the said power project being established by M/s TSPL, but even the security of the country was compromised by the above illegal acts of the accused, which apparently have been committed in furtherance of a larger conspiracy," the court said.

It added, "Sufficient documentary evidence in the form of exchange of e-mails between the three accused in connection with the above allegations is also stated to have been collected by the CBI."