The CBI on Wednesday booked former IAF chief SP Tyagi and 12 others, besides six firms, for alleged criminal conspiracy, cheating and bribery in the Rs 3,700 crore VVIP helicopter deal with UK-based AgustaWestland. Tyagi is the first Air Force chief to be named in a corruption or criminal case by the CBI.
The FIR has alleged that Tyagi favoured AgustaWestland by giving approvals for reducing the service ceiling (maximum height at which a helicopter can operate) of the helicopters from 6,000 metres to 4,500 metres so that AgustaWestland could enter the bidding process. The FIR does not mention that he directly received any financial gratification.
Tyagi took over as Air Force chief in January 2005 and served till December 2007.
Prior to Tyagi’s approvals for changing the service ceiling, the air force had vehemently opposed such a move on grounds of security, the CBI sources said.
Apart from the former Air Force chief, his cousins --- Sanjeev, alias, Juli; Rajeev, alias Docsa, and Sandeep --- European middlemen Carlo Gerosa, Christian Michel and Guido Haschke were among 13 individuals named in the FIR.
Two remittances of Euros 1.26 lakh and 2Euros lakh were made by Gordian Services Sarl, a Tunisia-based firm of alleged middleman Guido Hashke, to Tyagi brothers. During questioning the Tyagi brothers claimed these payments were made for consultancy works for Agusta Westland.
Gordian entered into several consultancy contracts with AgustaWestland from 2004-05 onwards and almost on back-to-back basis the firm also made consultancy contracts with the Tyagi brothers, the sources said.
Besides these two remittances, Tyagi brothers are also alleged to have received some un-quantified sum of money from the middlemen (Haschke and Carlo Gerosa), alleges the FIR.
The sources said IDS Infotech and Aeromatrix received Euros 5.6 million from European middlemen Hashke and Gerosa. The payment was made by IDS Tunisia for bogus engineering contracts and the remittances were made through hawala for swinging the deal in favour of Agusta.
In addition, Euros 30 million were paid to European middleman Christian Michel and the CBI suspects a portion of this was paid to officials and politicians in India for favouring Finmeccanica’s subsidiary.
The agency alleged that a total Euro 51 million kickbacks was paid by AgustaWestland. The bribe money was transferred to India by Agusta Westland and the middlemen hired by it between June 2004 and March 2005. “Remittances to Tyagi brothers and IDS Infotech and Aeromatrix kept coming in while favours were granted to Agusta Westland,” said a source.
CBI also alleged that AgustaWestland managed to introduce a comparative flight trial with non-functional engine and eventually succeeded in getting the contract for supply of 12 AW-101 VVIP helicopters from the Defence Ministry mainly due to softening of the IAF stand on service ceiling after Tyagi took over as its Chief.
Two names that were not part of the PE have been included in the FIR. They include the brother of former Union Minister Santosh Bagrodia, Satish Bagrodia and Pratap Aggarwal, Chairman and Managing Director of IDS Infotech.
Six companies named in the case include Italy-based Finmeccanica, AgustaWestland, Mohali-based IDS Infotech, Chandigarh based Aeromatrix, IDS Tunisia and IDS Mauritius.
The CBI has also named CEO of Aeromatrix Praveen Bakshi and former Finmeccanica Chairman Giuseppe Orsi, former AgustaWestland CEO Bruno Spagnolini, legal advisor and former board member of IDS Infotech, Gautam Khaitan as accused in the case. CBI has alleged that Khaitan, Bagrodia, Aggarwal and Bakshi facilitated the middlemen for bringing bribe money to India.
“It is alleged that in the procurement process of the Helicopters, some persons acted as middlemen and have allegedly influenced the deal in favour of the UK-based company. It is also alleged that Italy based company paid commission in terms of several millions of Euros to the middlemen. The middlemen from their share of commission allegedly paid huge sums of money to some Indian nationals in the garb of engineering contracts with two India based companies,” a CBI spokesperson said.
Following registration of the case, the CBI conducted searches at the premises of the accused individuals, including at the residence of former air force chief and firms at 14 places in Delhi, Gurgaon, Chandigarh and Mohali and investigations are continuing.