NEW DELHI: While the Enforcement Directorate made its first arrest — businessman and lawyer Gautam Khaitan — in the Rs 3600 crore AgustaWestland chopper scam, CBI is still dragging its feet in the case.
Even after 20 months of investigation, CBI is nowhere close to filing the chargesheet despite finishing the probe at India’s end long back. The agency has been delaying in filing the chargesheet on the grounds that it is awaiting the outcome of court proceedings in Italy and is yet to receive replies to its Letter Rogatories – judicial request to assist in probe – from some countries. In fact, a senior officer hinted that “it will not be surprising if the case is closed”.
When asked, CBI director Ranjit Sinha said, “We don’t even know yet whether we will file a chargesheet or a final report.” Apart from filing chargesheet, other aspect of a final report is filing closure report.
CBI had earlier claimed it had established the money trail in the case. It also questioned several former governors — E S L Narasimhan, M K Narayanan and B V Wanchoo — and others in connection with the alleged payoffs. The agency received documents on proceedings in an Italian court with the help of the defence ministry and its teams visited Italy twice. In fact, Ranjit Sinha himself visited Italy in this connection once.
According to sources, the LR replies are yet to be received from Tunisia, UK and Mauritius. However, sources said the agency can use the evidence received from Italy and investigations carried out in India to complete its chargesheet.
Much before ED, the agency had filed FIR against former Air Chief S P Tyagi and some others in March 2013 for allegedly receiving kickbacks of Rs 360 crore. Khaitan was named as accused by CBI in its FIR in the AgustaWestland deal, which was later cancelled by the government.
The ED arrested Khaitan under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after registering an FIR in July this year.
Both ED and CBI have almost same persons named as accused in their FIRs.
In its FIR, CBI named former air chief S P Tyagi, his three cousins — Julie, Docsa and Sandeep Tyagi, Satish Bagrodia, brother of former union minister Santosh Bagrodia, Gautam Khaitan, European middlemen Carlo Gerosa, Christian Michel, Guido Haschke, Guiseppe Orsi and some private companies for criminal conspiracy among other things.
In its FIR, the agency had given details of suspected illegal money transactions of close to 36 million Euros, which allegedly came to Indian companies and Tyagi cousins at different intervals in the garb of ‘consultancy’ and ‘engineering’ contracts.
CBI alleged that during the tenure of Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi and “with his approval”, the air force “conceded to reduce the service ceiling for VVIP helicopters from 6000 meters to 4500 meters as mandatory to which it was opposing vehemently on the grounds of security constraints and other related reasons earlier”.
It had alleged that reduction of service ceiling — maximum height at which a helicopter can perform normally – allowed UK-based AgustaWestland to come into fray.
TOI | Sep 26, 2014
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