Karti brought face-to-face with his CA in Tihar Jail

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Saturday took former finance minister P Chidambaram's son Karti Chidambaram to Tihar jail and confronted him with S Bhaskararaman, a chartered accountant who allegedly handled all the business activities and finances of Karti.
Sources confirmed that Karti was confronted with Bhaskararaman, who was arrested by ED last month, for several hours inside the jail.

The agency had on Friday sought extended custody of Karti to confront him with the CA and also the documents recently recovered from the office of Advantage Strategic Consulting Pvt Ltd (ASCPL).

Bhaskararaman was last questioned by CBI in August 2017 when agency interrogated directors of ASCPL.

It is being probed that ASCPL was instrumental in bringing foreign investments to India in violation of the rules and Karti was the "ultimate beneficiary" of the company. The directors of this company - Mohananan Rajesh, Ravi Vishwanathan, Chinna Bala Nageswar Reddy and Padma Bhaskararaman, and S Bhaskararaman himself had signed their individual wills on June 19, 2013, in which they bequeathed on their death various shares held by them and the shares of ASCPL to Karti's daughter Aditi Nalini Chidambaram. ED had earlier recovered Karti's email conversations with the directors of ASCPL which proved that Chidambaram junior was running the affairs in ASCPL.

Earlier, CBI had confronted Karti with Indrani Mukerjea inside Byculla jail in Mumbai last Sunday during which former media czar stood by her statement that she paid bribes to Karti Chidambaram, whom she met at the reference of P Chidambaram, who was finance minister at that time.

According to CBI, Karti had asked Mukerjea for a bribe of $1 million when they met at Hyatt hotel in Delhi. As per the plan worked out between the INX Media promoters and Karti, Mukerjea engaged Karti's company Advantage Strategic Consulting Pvt Ltd (ASCPL). As part of the alleged quid pro quo, ASCPL and its associated companies around this time raised four invoices for $700,000 (Rs 3.10 crore) on INX Media and were reimbursed. Soon, FIPB gave its approval to fix the irregularities.

CBI, during a raid on March 7 and 8, has also recovered air tickets and mobile phone bills of Karti Chidambaram and other family members, which were paid by Advantage Strategic Consulting Pvt Ltd (ASCPL). The agency will soon send Letter Rogatory (LRs - judicial request seeking information from foreign countries) to Singapore, Greece, Spain, Mauritius and the UK to know about the money trail of ASCPL and other companies, as first reported by TOI.