Court to consider ED's charge sheet in chopper scam tomorrow

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today told a Delhi court that it has enough evidence to prosecute former AgustaWestland and Finmeccanica directors Giuseppe Orsi and Bruno Spagnolini, and others for alleged money laundering in the VVIP chopper case.

Special Judge Arvind Kumar reserved for tomorrow the order on whether to take cognisance on the charge sheet filed by special public prosecutor N K Matta, and summon Orsi, Spagnolini and others as accused in the case.

In the charge sheet, the ED said it had recorded unimpeachable evidence supporting the allegations against all the accused persons.

The probe agency had on July 18 filed a supplementary charge sheet, through advocate Yashu Khurana, accusing Orsi, Spagnolini and ex-IAF chief S P Tyagi, besides others, of money laundering in the case.

It accused 34 Indian and foreign individuals and companies, including Tyagi, Italian middlemen Carlo Gerosa and Guido Haschke, lawyer Gautam Khaitan and Finmeccanica, the parent company of AgustaWestland, of laundering money to the tune of around 28 million Euro.

The probe report also claimed that the kickbacks were paid by AgustaWestland through two different channels.

The ED, in its charge sheet, has alleged that money was laundered through multiple foreign companies, which were used as fronts to park the alleged kickbacks.

The agency said it may file more supplementary charge sheets in the matter.

On January 1, 2014, India scrapped the contract with Finmeccanica's British subsidiary AgustaWestland for supplying 12 AW-101 VVIP choppers to the IAF over alleged breach of contractual obligations and charges of kickbacks of Rs 423 crore paid by it to secure the deal.

The accused named in the charge sheet include Guido Haschke, Carlo Gerosa, S P Tyagi, his cousins Rajiv Tyagi and Sanjeev Tyagi, advocate Gautam Khaitan and his wife Ritu Khaitan, Shivani Saxena and her husband Rajeev Saxena, both directors of two Dubai-based firms,