Amid CBI probe into visa case, Karti Chidambaram alleges breach of privilege
Congress MP Karti Chidambaram, who is set to be questioned by the CBI for the second straight day in the case over alleged provision of visas to Chinese nationals, has said he has written to Lok Sabha speaker Om Prakash Birla.
The 50-year-old Lok Sabha member has said that he has drawn the attention – in his letter to Birla – towards the “gross breach of parliamentary privilege by the CBI.” “In the course of the so-called raids, certain officers of CBI seized some of my highly confidential and personal notes and papers linked to the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Information Technology, of which I am a member. Shockingly, even drafts of the questions I intended to ask witnesses summoned to the Committee were also seized,” the MP from Tamil Nadu’s Sivaganga has claimed.
The Congress leader began by saying that the CBI investigation was aimed at “silencing the voice of dissent”. “Over the last few days my family and I have become targets of a relentless campaign by the present government and investigating agencies who are trying to silence our voices of dissent by foisting one case after another,” he said. “Such targeted intimidation of a member of the house amounts to breach of privilege.”
In his letter, he further underlined: “I want you to know that I have become a victim of grossly illegal and unconstitutional action. The CBI, in the garb of investigation into an 11-year-old decision of the government of India in which I had absolutely no involvement, raided my residence in Delhi.”
According to reports, he is set to be quizzed by the central probe agency at around 11 am. Ahead of the day 2 of questioning, he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI: “It’s their privilege to call me and it’s my duty to go.”
On Thursday, the Lok Sabha MP was given a temporary relief from a Delhi court in the form of a pre-arrest bail till May 30.
The CBI is probing into the facilitation of project visas for Chinese nationals for a power project of the Vedanta group in Punjab in return for bribes in 2011, when his father P Chidambaram was the union home minister.