Chopper scam: SC stays Delhi HC order allowing Saxena to travel abroad

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 26

The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed a Delhi High Court order allowing Rajeev Saxena—an accused-turned-approver in the AgustaWestland chopper scam-related money laundering case—to travel abroad for medical treatment.

A Vacation Bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna stayed the June 10 high court order after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted on behalf of the ED that certain new facts had emerged against Saxena on alleged violations of laws on income tax, money laundering and benami transactions.

As Mehta said the accused was also being investigated for benami transactions and the CBI was to lodge a fresh case against him, the Bench issued notice to him and posted the matter for further hearing after three weeks.

The top court also ordered the AIIMS Director to constitute a medical board to thoroughly examine Saxena and submit a report in three weeks.

The Solicitor General said the CBI has also filed an application seeking to become a party in the ED’s appeal against the high court order allowing Saxena to travel abroad.

“the CBI is conducting an independent investigation in pursuance of an FIR... In which the role of present respondent (Saxena) is being investigated into. This investigation is separate and independent than the investigation being conducted by ED though there may be some overlapping of some of the areas of investigation,” the ED said in its fresh plea.

A director of two Dubai-based firms—UHY Saxena and Matrix Holdings—Saxena was one of the accused named in the chargesheet filed by the ED in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland scam, who later turned an approver. The United Arab Emirates security agencies had picked him up from his Dubai residence on January 30 and extradited him to India.

In its June 10 order, the high court had said he had already been granted bail on medical grounds, before being pardoned and made an approver. Noting that he was suffering from various medical ailments, the high court had allowed him to go to Dubai, the UK and certain other European countries for medical treatment for a month between June 25 and July 24, 2019. The high court had dismissed the ED’s plea against the trial court’s June 1 order permitting Saxena to travel abroad.

The top court had on Tuesday indicated allowing Saxena to travel abroad for medical treatment if his relatives were ready to furnish two sureties of Rs 5 crore each for his return.

It had asked Saxena’s counsel to inform it if his sister and sister-in-law were willing to furnish sureties of Rs 5 crore each as guarantee that he would return to face trial, the Enforcement Directorate vehemently opposed it.

The ED—which has challenged the Delhi High Court’s June 10 order allowing Saxena to travel abroad for treatment of blood cancer and other ailments—had submitted that he had no roots in India and he might not come back if allowed to leave the country.