Chopper deal: SC to hear case against Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh next week

New Delhi, April 28

The Supreme Court said on Thursday it would hear a Public Interest Litigation for booking some politicians, among them Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in a case of alleged corruption in buying AgustaWestland choppers next week.

A bench comprising Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justices R Banumathi and UU Lalit listed the case to be heard next week after advocate ML Sharma said it should be heard on priority.

Last year, the Central Bureau of Investigations estimated that European businessmen James, Gerosa and Haschke had paid some 58 million euros (Rs 423 crore) to have a deal to buy 12 advance helicopters for Indian VVIPs manipulated in favour of AgustaWestland, a UK subsidiary of an Italian company, Finmeccanica.

Sanjeev alias Julie, Rajeev alias Docsa and Sandeep — cousins of former Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi, also a suspect in the case — were accused of accepting bribes of Rs 10.5 million euros (Rs 7.68 crore) from some middlemen in two installments — first through bank transfers and then through cash. 

The deal was cancelled after allegations of corruption flew thick and fast.     

Italian defence and aerospace major Finmeccanica’s former chief Giuseppe Orsi was recently sentenced by the Milan appeals court to 4.5 years in jail for false accounting and corruption over the sale of 12 VVIP choppers to India for Rs 3,600 crore.

The court also sentenced Bruno Spagnolini, former CEO of Finmeccanica’s helicopter subsidiary AgustaWestland, to four years in jail. 

The Italian court is believed to said that the firm, Gandhi, some close aides, Singh and Narayan had actively lobbied to seal the deal. Gandhi was supposedly described by the court as the force behind the deal.

The court is also believed to have quoted a middleman has having mentioned Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel and former Air Chief S P Tyagi in the judgement. — PTI