CBI books IAF ex-chief, 12 others in copter scam; raids conducted

The CBI on Wednesday booked former Indian Air Force chief, Air Chief Marshal S.P. Tyagi (Retd), and 12 others under charges of bribery, cheating and corruption in the `3,600 crore AgustaWestland helicopter deal. Immediately after registering the FIR, CBI sleuths conducted searches at 14 locations in Delhi, Gurgaon, Chandigarh and Mohali. Searches were also conducted at the residential premises of the former IAF Chief. CBI sources said the former Air Chief, his cousins Sanjeev, alias Julie; Rajeev, alias Docsa; and Sandeep, and European middlemen Carlo Gerosa, Christian Michel and Guido Haschke are among the 13 individuals named in the FIR as accused. Two new names, which were not part of the agency’s preliminary enquiry, have been included in the FIR — Santosh Bagrodia, brother of former Union minister Santosh Bagrodia, and Pratap Aggarwal, CMD of IDS Infotech. Six companies, including Italy-based Finmeccanica, AgustaWestland, Mohali-based IDS Infotech, Chandigarh-based Aeromatrix, IDS Tunisia and IDS Mauritius have also been booked by the CBI in its FIR. The agency has alleged in its FIR that of a total of euro 51 million in kickbacks paid by AgustaWestland, British middleman Christian Michel was paid about euro 30 million. The agency, which is planning to send letters rogatory to the UK, Italy, Tunisia and Mauritius to get details about certain overseas companies, is likely to make significant arrests in connection with the case in a day or two, sources said. CBI officials have also recovered several hard disks of computers from the premises of the accused company. The hard disks will be sent for forensic examination. “Efforts will also be made to retrieve the deleted information (if any) through hard-disk imaging,” sources said. “The probe has also established that AgustaWestland managed to introduce a comparative flight trial with a 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 on service ceiling after Tyagi took over as its chief,” sources said. S.P. Tyagi is the first Chief of the Indian Air Force to be named in a corruption case by the CBI. “The former IAF Chief allegedly conceded to reduce the service ceiling for the VVIP helicopters from 6,000 metres to 4,500 metres. The reduction of the service ceiling (maximum height at which a helicopter can perform normally) allowed UK-based AgustaWestland to come into the fray as, otherwise, its helicopters were not even qualified for submission of bids,” sources said.