P Chidambaram got Rs 1.13 crore in Aircel-Maxis case, says CBI

The CBI has accused former finance minister P Chidambaram of receiving Rs 1.13 crore of “quid pro quo” money his son Karti received for organising clearance for Maxis’s allegedly illegal proposal to bring FDI worth Rs 3,560 crore in Aircel.

The money, which was received by Chidambaram between 2006 and 2012, was part of the amount that was routed to companies controlled by Karti through associate firms of Maxis within India and by foreign remittances, the agency alleged.

Chidambaram has consistently denied any wrongdoing in the Aircel-Maxis matter. He tweeted on Monday, “It is the FIPB that decides if a proposal falls within the competence of the FM. FIPB put up the proposal to me and I approved it along with 20 other proposals.”

In a separate chapter on “quid pro quo” in the Aircel-Maxis deal, the CBI chargesheet claimed that Advantage Strategic Consulting Pvt Ltd (ASCPL) — a company incorporated by S Bhaskararaman, who handled financial matters of Karti’s family members — raised an invoice for Rs 27.55 lakh on March 29, 2006, on Aircel for professional charges towards management consultancy services.

After deducting TDS (Rs 1.54 lakh), payment of Rs 26 lakh was made through a cheque on April 4, 2006.

Asserting that ASCPL had no skilled professionals for providing consultancy, the CBI said “no management consultancy services were rendered by ASCPL to Aircel”. “This payment of Rs 26 lakh is in the nature of quid pro quo for the FIPB approval granted by P Chidambaram as finance minister on March 13, 2006,” the agency alleged in the chargesheet, exclusively accessed by TOI.

Calling the Chidambarams the “beneficial owner” of ASCPL, the CBI claimed the company used to pay Karti’s mobile, credit card and travel bills.

Talking about the second part of the “quid pro quo” received by Chidambaram, the chargesheet claimed Karti was in touch with Ralph Marshall (a key aide of Maxis’s T Ananda Krishnan). Chess Management Services Pvt Ltd, a company owned by Karti and P Chidambaram’s relative A Palaniappan, received $1,94,831 (over Rs 87.60 lakh) through 17 foreign remittances from four associate companies of Maxis group, the CBI claimed.

The foreign transactions, ranging from $5,000 to $16,000, were made by four companies — Bumi Armada, Bumi Armada Navigation, Maxis Mobile and Astro All Asia — between March 2007 and January 2012 in Chess Management.

The chargesheet claimed Chess Management received these remittances in the garb of providing electronic legal compliance management (eLCM) services, which the company failed to establish as bona fide during the probe.

“The foreign remittances received by Chess are in the nature of quid pro quo for the FIPB approval granted by P Chidambaram,” it claimed.