ED raids Bengaluru office Sequoia Capital firm linked to Karthi Chidambaram

Bengaluru, April 19: The Enforcement Directorate conducted a late night raid at the Bengaluru office of the Singapore based firm Sequoia Capital linked to Karthi C, the son of former union minister P Chidambaram.

The Enforcement Directorate has been probing to find out if Advantage Strategic had acquired 1.5 lakh shares of Vasan Group at a throwaway price of Rs.100 a unit.

It is also alleged that the firm had allegedly made over Rs.22 crore by selling 30,000 shares at Rs.7,500 each to Sequoia Capital.

Similar raids had been conducted in Chennai too. The ED has been probing the alleged financial transaction between the company owned by Karti and Aircel.

The deal was allegedly made just before the company was given an approval from the foreign investment promotion board. The ED is seeking to know why the company owned by Karti was allotted shares at a lower rate than the book value.

It had been alleged that the company controlled by Karti had benefited by earning huge profits during the sale of Aircel.

It was alleged that Karti, benefited from Chidambaram's position as Finance Minister to earn huge profits during the sale of Aircel which Chidambaram sanctioned in 2006.

Senior BJP leader, Subramanian Swamy had alleged that the in 2005 Aircel was on the verge of bankruptcy. The owner of the company Sivasankaran was approached by Maxis which wanted to pick up a 74% stake in Aircel for nearly Rs 4,000 crores.

The Vasan case:
The Enforcement Directorate is also probing if there were any financial dealings between the companies owned by Karti Chidambaram and V Dwarakanathan who is a stake holder in the Vasan Health Care Private Ltd. The ED had sought to know from Dwarakanathan about some of the transactions he had made with the companies that were owned by Karti.

The ED is also probing some transactions of Vasan Health Care Pvt Ltd which is a conglomerate owning 175 hospitals in India, Colombo and Dubai.

The ED seeks to know about the sale of 1.5 lakh shares to the Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited in October 2008. An official with the ED informed OneIndia that they are trying to find out if Karti has a stake in any of these firms. This probe comes in the wake of another probe by the ED.

The ED has been probing an ambulance scam involving the Ziqitza Health Care Ltd. Karti had however clarified that he is not a stakeholder in that company.

The probe by the ED is to find out the transactions which involved huge sums of money which went into Vasan Health Care Pvt Ltd (VHPCL). The ED is trying to ascertain if Karti Chidambaram had a role in these transactions and if he is linked with VHPCL.

OneIndia News