Karti's aide Bhaskararaman to be produced in Delhi court today

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday will produce S.Bhaskararaman, the close associate of Karti Chidambram, before the Rouse Avenue Court in New Delhi.

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

He was produced before a local court in Chennai, which had sent him on one day transit remand.

The CBI is all set to seek two weeks custody of him. He will be grilled and will be confronted with evidence.

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. Later on in the 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 were named as accused along with others, including private firms. It is said that senior Chidambaram allegedly helped them.

According to the FIR, a Mansa (Punjab) based private firm, Talwandi Sabo Power Limited, took the help of a middleman and allegedly paid Rs 50 lakh to get the visas issued for Chinese nationals to help the company in completing a project before the deadline.

"The Mansa (Punjab) based private firm was in the process of establishing a 1980 MW thermal power plant, and this 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 for their site at District Mansa (Punjab) and 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 said private company approached a person based at Chennai through his close associate and thereafter they devised a back-door way to defeat the purpose of ceiling (maximum of Project Visas permissible to the company's plant) by granting permission to re-use 263 Project Visas allotted to the said Chinese company's officials.

In pursuance of the same, the said representative of Mansa-based private company submitted a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs seeking approval to reuse 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 based at Chennai through his close associate which was paid by the Mansa-based private company.

"The payment of the bribe was routed from the Mansa-based private company to the said private person of Chennai and his close associate through a Mumbai-based company as payment of false invoice raised for Consultancy and out of pocket expenses for Chinese Visas related works. The private company based at Mumbai was never in any kind of work relating to Visas; rather it was in an entirely different business of industrial knives," said the CBI official.

It has been alleged that senior Chidambaram allegedly helped the Chinese nationals get visas by flouting rules.