New Delhi: Former Union ministers who are still in influential positions, and top bureaucrats and individuals who have occupied gubernatorial positions in the past are going to come under CBI investigation in the Rs 3,600-crore VVIP helicopter scam which has hogged the limelight afresh after the extradition of British national Christian Michel to India from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
CBI officials, who had dealt with the case when it was first given to the agency in February 2013, said that it could not go deep into the role played by certain individuals at the time since they were occupying positions of influence and it was virtually impossible to investigate them. However, with Michel in their custody now and a change in the political dispensation, they believe that they will be able to summon those individuals who had escaped a detailed questioning earlier.
Agency sources said that the bureaucrats who were in a position to affect the deal in one way or the other, at different stages of negotiation and finalisation, include former National Security Advisor (NSA) and former Governor of West Bengal M.K. Narayanan, former chief of Special Protection Group (SPG) Bharat Wanchoo who was later appointed as Goa Governor, former Defence Secretary and Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) Shashi Kant Sharma and another former Defence Secretary Vijay Singh, who had occupied the post between 2007 and 2009.
CBI officials said that the crucial discussion when the flying height was revised was held on 7 March 2005 during a meeting at Air HQ chaired by Deputy Chief of Air Staff (DCAS) and attended by the Joint Secretary and Acquisition Manager (Air), SPG Director and other officers from Air HQ, wherein height altitude capability was reduced to 4,500 metre.
The agency has already done the initial questioning of Wanchoo and Narayanan, both of whom had resigned from their gubernatorial positions soon after the questioning. The agency is likely to question a top leader from the Congress who has been active in the media and sports, comes from an eastern state and is known for his network across different sectors and countries.
“We have lots of information with us including names of prominent politicians, bureaucrats and arms dealers who were in touch with Christian for a long period of time and helped him in the helicopter deal. Christian was a known name in the social and elite circles of Delhi. This whole scam, if allowed to be probed fairly without any political interference, will probably be a watershed moment in the CBI as some very prominent persons will be taken in custody very soon,” a CBI source said.
The source said that the agency was not banking just on the initials that had first figured in a note allegedly written by Guido Haschke, another middleman in the chopper deal. These initials that include “AP” and “FAM”, according to officials, was not of any evidentiary value in court and hence agency officials were using these as just one of the multiple leads that they are using to elicit response from Michel. Sources said that Christian, who was a frequent visitor to Claridges Hotel in Delhi, was also on very friendly terms with Indian businessman Suresh Nanda, who is an arms dealer and whose name had cropped up in the Barak missile deal. The hotel is also owned by the Nandas. The Congress leader that the CBI is looking at, is very close to the Nandas. As per CBI allegations, AgustaWestland, a subsidiary of Italian defence giant Finmeccanica, allegedly paid more than Rs 300 crore as bribe to secure the Rs 3,600-crore deal for AgustaWestland to supply 12 VVIP helicopters in 2010.
Official sources said that the CBI questioning of former Chief of Air Staff S.P. Tyagi and his cousins, who were arrested and subsequently released on bail, had also revealed that Wanchoo played a vital role in the deal and it was he who pushed for changing the height at which the helicopter could fly. Michel, who represented Italian arms giant Finmeccanica—the parent company of AgustaWestland and which changed its name in 2016 to Leonardo—has a reputation of employing former government and military officers. William Bach who was British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Minister of State for Defence Procurement, was made director of Finmeccanica UK in January 2007. Another person, Kevin Tebbit, who was a permanent Under Secretary in UK’s Defence Ministry from 1998 to 2005, also joined Finmeccanica in July 2007. Ex-British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon became the senior vice-president of AgustaWestland in 2010. David Osmond, a former intelligence coordinator, was given a high ranking position in the company. Brian Burridge, who was in charge of the overall command of British military forces in Iraq in the 2003 operation, was made a vice-president in the company in 2006.