Former IAF chief S P Tyagi, who was summoned by CBI for questioning in the Agusta Westland case, reportedly visited Italy after his retirement, according to CBI sources.
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He is said to have passed on this information via middlemen to help AgustaWestland clinch the deal to supply twelve VVIP choppers to the IAF.
The allegation against the former Air chief is that he had reduced flying ceiling of the helicopter so that AgustaWestland was included in the bids.
In 2006, well after he became air chief, Air Marshal Tyagi allegedly met the two middlemen at his cousin’s office and home in Delhi. The investigating agency had issued him summons on Friday. Gujral arrived at the CBI Headquarters here in the morning and appeared before the investigation team probing the case.
The Centre on Saturday clarified that Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not struck a deal with Italy on the multi-million dollar AgustaWestland chopper deal.
CBI has alleged that the reduction of the service ceiling – maximum height at which a helicopter can perform normally- allowed the UK-based firm to get into the fray as otherwise its helicopters were not even qualified for submission of bids, as per PTI. Will SP Tyagi reveal those names? Both have been questioned at length in 2013 but the fresh round of questioning was necessitated after the April 7 order of an Italian court.
Tyagi and the middlemen are among the 13 individuals named as accused in the CBI’s FIR, which was later used by the ED for filing their separate case under criminal charges of money laundering. Gujral is the first person to be examined since an Italian court’s verdict on the deal.
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An Italian court investigated the contract because Augusta’s parent company is Finmeccanica, an Italian defence manufacturer, and decided that vast amounts of bribes were routed to India by company executives to land the deal for 12 VVIP helicopters for about Rs. 3,600 crore.
