New Delhi: Nearly 12 years after the Central Bureau of Investigation registered an FIR based on a complaint from the Ministry of Defence alleging corruption and irregularities in the procurement of 12 VVIP choppers from AgustaWestland, the case has not even reached the stage of commencement of trial.
Before the Supreme Court, which was hearing the petition of accused British national Christian Michel James, the agency claimed it was continuing its investigation to “primarily ascertain the end beneficiaries of the kickbacks, who are suspected to be involved in this case and who are linked to the petitioner”.
The Supreme Court Tuesday granted James bail, a little more than six years after the CBI took him in custody on his extradition from the United Arab Emirates in December 2018.
“Considering the facts and circumstances of the case and in particular that the petitioner, who was extradited in December 2018, has been in custody since then, i.e. more than six years by now, and according to the learned senior counsel, appearing for the respondent-CBI, despite filing three charge-sheets and two supplementary charge-sheets, the investigation is still on going, as is also apparent from the counter affidavit, and the fact that the trial has not yet commenced, we are inclined to grant bail to the petitioner on such terms and conditions as may be determined by the Trial Court in connection with FIR/RC No.RC-217-2013-A0003 dated 12.03.2013,” a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and
Sandeep Mehta observed in the order.
Since his extradition, Christian Michel James has been in Tihar jail after serving time in the custody of the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate, which had also filed a money laundering case against him.
The CBI, which, so far, has filed three chargesheets arraying 32 as accused, had dispatched a letter rogatory to nine countries in the case. Of late, it has also been complying with court orders under 207 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, mandating agencies to provide the accused with copies of documents relied upon by the prosecution.
Aljo K. Joseph, James’s counsel, told ThePrint that the petitioner had been visiting the CBI headquarters to inspect documents, both relied on and not relied on by the agency in the case against him since the end of 2024. It, he added, was likely to continue for at least one more year, considering the “voluminous” list of documents and the number of accused persons in the case.
The case and the probe
The entire saga began in 2011 when Italian authorities initiated a probe into disclosures made by the then head of external relations of Finmeccanica, the holding company of AgustaWestland International, concerning payment of bribes through middlemen such as Guido Ralph Haschke and James.
In 2012, The Swiss Police recovered payment or balance sheet from the house of the mother of Guido Ralph Haschke, along with various other incriminating documents.
As revelations unfolded overseas, the Indian Ministry of Defence approached the CBI in February 2013 and requested a probe into the allegations of the payment of bribes.
In March 2013, the agency booked former chief of air staff S.P. Tyagi, middlemen such as James, and firms including AugustaWestLand.
During the investigation, which then started, the agency filed three chargesheets listing 32 people as accused—the first in September 2017, the second in September 2020, and the third and last chargesheet in March 2022. After his extradition to India in 2018, James was listed as one of AgustaWestland’s “historical consultants”, who scouted and monitored activities on the helicopter acquisition.
The CBI alleged that James colluded with officials of the MoD and the Indian Air Force to extract confidential information related to the procurement and shared the same with his accomplices, with the Swiss police then recovering those documents and the CBI obtaining those through a letter rogatory.
The agency further alleged that the proposal was to pay IAF and MOD officers, other bureaucrats, politicians and their families in India 30 million Euros for showing favour in the VVIP helicopter deal.
In a counter affidavit filed to challenge James’s petition in the SC, the CBI also alleged that the entire offence caused a loss of roughly Rs 3,700 crore to the Indian government.
India, in late 2013, terminated the VVIP chopper procurement deal.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)