MoD gets official papers from AgustaWestland

The officials said a set of documents were received as part of the reply of the chopper manufacturer to show-cause notices by the Defence Ministry. This includes the arrest warrant that was issued by Italian courts for the custody of the company’s CEO Giuseppe Orsi. The document,the contents of which were first reported by The Indian Express,contains details of the ongoing probe and the allegations of kickbacks.

Sources said after the documents were received by the ministry,they were shared with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that is currently probing the case and is set to file a regular case shortly into the issue that is likely to name former Air Chief S P Tyagi among others.

This is the first time that the Defence Ministry has officially received any documents in the case. Since the past one year,the ministry has held the argument that it could not proceed on the case or press for an investigation as it did not have any official documents to support a case.

After first reporting on the graft allegations last year,The Indian Express had carried a series of documents that detailed the Italian probe as well as several secretly recorded conversations that revealed the links of Indian and Italian middlemen.