The CBI on Monday questioned former Indian Air Force (IAF) chief SP Tyagi on the inflow of foreign remittances into his bank accounts in 2009 after his retirement from service in connection with the ongoing probe into the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal.
CBI officials refused to quantify the volume of the foreign remittances received by Tyagi in his bank accounts. Interestingly, Tyagi’s account was frozen after the registration of the case in 2013 but the CBI has only now found out that Tyagi had received foreign remittances.
The CBI also questioned Managing Director of IDS Infotech Pratap Aggarwal and CEO of Aeromatrix Praveen Bakshi . Aggarwal and Bakshi were questioned about the nature of the services their respective companies provided to the AgustaWestland. The CBI is verifying their claims and the genuineness of their statements relating to the services claimed to have been rendered by these two companies to AgustaWestland.
Both the companies, accused in the FIR, have claimed to have provided engineering services to AgustaWestland for which they received payments. However, the agency suspects that the two companies were used as intermediaries for transfer of bribe money by AgustaWestland to the babus and politicians who were allegedly the beneficiaries of the controversial deal with the company for supply of 12 VVIP helicopters. The CBI has again called lawyer and businessman Guatam Khaitan, Bakshi and Aggarwal for questioning on Tuesday.
During the earlier rounds of questioning, Khaitan was found to be concealing information on the financial transaction between his company Aeromatrix and AgustaWestland. Khaitan, however, has admitted that he was instrumental in setting up shell company IDS Tunisia, a subsidiary of IDS Infotech based at Chandigarh. AgustaWestland transferred funds for the bribe money through IDS Tunisia to its parent company as well as certain individuals in India, agency sources said. Khaitan was legal advisor of IDS Infotech.