The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has begun unravelling the trail of “cash” which is suspected to have been paid as alleged kickbacks in the Rs3,600-crore AgustaWestland scam, even as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) questioned former Indian Air Force (IAF) chief SP Tyagi for the third consecutive day on Wednesday.
The ED is all set to begin the second round of questioning of witnesses and accused in connection with the scam and will question Tyagi again on Thursday.
The ED, which is probing the money laundering angle in the case, has also summoned Tyagi’s cousins and realty firm Emaar MGF’s boss Shravan Gupta.
Gupta’s name cropped up after it was found that the alleged middleman Guido Haschke was an independent director of the firm from September to December 2009.
The CBI on its part grilled lawyer Gautam Khaitan for the first time after the Milan court’s order which held that bribes were paid to clinch the deal. During questioning, Khaitan admitted he was instrumental in setting up shell company IDS Tunisia a subsidiary of IDS India.
Khaitan’s questioning has also revealed that AgustaWestland transferred funds to IDS Tunisia which in turn transferred it to IDS India. The CBI has called the then Air Vice-Marshal (Plans) NV Tyagi to be examined in connection with the alleged irregularities in the deal, CBI sources said.
CBI sources said NV Tyagi was part of a team of senior officials who were involved in the deliberations to ease the specifications of the helicopters for the VVIPs.
Meanwhile, the CBI has again requested Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to fast track the letters Rogatories (judicial request) to eight countries sent earlier.
Khaitan will be grilled by the CBI again on Thursday and Tyagi may be summoned again if the investigation so demands. Both Tyagi and Khaitan were grilled by the CBI from morning till late in the evening.
Khaitan who is an advocate and a former Board member of the company Aeromatrix which was allegedly used to route the bribe is named in the CBI’s FIR as an accused. Khaitan is also the legal advisor of Chandigarh-based IDS Infotech.
The focus of the CBI questioning was Khaitan’s alleged links with Italian middlemen-- Carlo Gerosa and Guido Haschke, CBI sources said.
The ED, in its chargesheet filed last year in a court, had claimed to have detected the flow of alleged kickbacks sent from abroad to companies of the accused Gautam Khaitan and cousin brothers of the former IAF chief.
Officials said the flow of funds is being probed as it is alleged that it was quid-pro-quo to make AgustaWestland eligible to get selected for the final delivery of the 12 AW-101 helicopters to India for VVIP flying duties.
The ED, according to the chargesheet, had traced two payments of Euro 1,26,000 and another Euros 200,000 from a company based in Tunisia and others made to Tyagi brothers “camouflaged” in the form of consultancy fee and its probe had found that the said “remittances correspond with the developments taking place in alteration/reduction of mandatory servicing ceiling of the helicopters.”
The ED claimed that “besides these two remittances, the Tyagi brothers including the then IAF chief Tyagi, also received some amount of cash from Gerosa and Haschke.”
The ED probe found that the alleged middlemen Gerosa and Haschke, in collusion with the Tyagi brothers Sanjeev, Rajeev and Sandeep “managed to make inroads in IAF through Air Chief Marshal Tyagi and thereby could influence and subvert the consistent stand of IAF regarding mandatory service ceiling of the helicopters.”
The ED, sources said, suspects the tainted cash could have been used by the accused for making certain high-value payments and purchase of costly assets.
The CBI had registered a case against Tyagi along with 13 others including his cousins and European middlemen.
The allegation against the former IAF chief was that he reduced flying ceiling of the helicopter from 6,000 m to 4,500 m (15,000 ft) which put AgustaWestland helicopters in the fray as its copters were not eligible to participate in the bids.
Tyagi has denied allegations against him and said that the change of specifications, which brought AgustaWestland into contention, was a collective decision in which senior officers of IAF, SPG, NSA and other departments were involved.