The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a supplementary charge sheet in the Rs 3,700 crore Agusta-Westland chopper deal against former Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma and four Indian Air Force personnel, officials said on Wednesday, 16 March.
The charge sheet was filed by the CBI after getting the nod from the government to prosecute Sharma, who was the Defence Secretary between 2011 and 2013 before being appointed the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).
The CBI has also requested the Defence Ministry for a go-ahead to prosecute former former Air Vice Marshal Jasbir Singh Panesar (now retired), deputy chief test pilot S A Kunte, the then Wing Commander Thomas Mathew and Group Captain N Santosh, news agency PTI reported.
The CBI's Special Investigation Team took over the case in 2016 and filed the first charge sheet against former Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi and 11 others on 1 September 2017.
Background
The Indian government wanted to replace its Russian Mi-38 helicopters with modern choppers for VVIP conveyance (to transport the prime minister, president and other VVIPs) in 1999, soon after the Kargil war.
Over the next few years, they rejected some of the vendors who offered a cheaper deal, and went ahead with defence major Finmeccanica’s British subsidiary AgustaWestland, ordering 12 of its AWA101 choppers in 2010.
It emerged in 2012, during investigations by Italian officials into alleged cases of fraud by Finmeccanica, that the deal with India, worth Rs 3,546 crore (556 million Euros), could possibly have been facilitated by middle persons who took kickbacks.
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