Speech : Shri Prakash Javadekar on the purchase of 12 VVIP Choppers in Rajya Sabha

Salient points made by Shri Prakash Javadekar, BJP MP, in Rajya Sabha while initiating the debate on Short Duration Discussion on the purchase of 12 VVIP Choppers from AugustaWestland

• This scam relates to payment of commission/bribe to the tune of ` 400 to `600 crore in the purchase of ` 3546 crore worth 12 VVIP Choppers from AugustaWestland Company of Italy. The deal was done in February 2010.
• The scam came in to open because of a whistleblower named Borgogini an employee of finmeccanica who blew cap of on this scam and gave a 568 page statement to the Italian investigation agencies.
• The Italian agencies then started further probe by method of intercepts, taping tracking and tracing and found behemoth of evidences.
• Pair of middlemen Hachske and Gerosa have been alleged to have got about `100-`125 crore, while one another middlemen Christian Michale got ` 240 crore of which he retained  `40 crores for himself and rest `200 crore was passed on to the person/s, who could swing the deal in favour of AugustaWestland.
• There is also a money laundering angle to the entire deal as the commission/bribe money was allegedly routed to India from London via Tunisia and Mauritius through front companies like IDS Tunisia, IDS India and Aeromatrix, Chandigarh.
• In the 568-page statement made by Borgogini in Italy, the complete detail of how the corruption had happened has been described.
• The transcript of the audio tape intercept in which how the middlemen involved in the deal acted and tried to destroy the evidence of money trail was in public for one whole year but UPA government failed to act.
• While the country (Italy), which would have been the beneficiary if the chopper deal gets through has launched a probe into the alleged payment of bribe in the deal and has even arrested the prime accused, whereas the country (India) which would be the loser did not launch the probe.
• Well about a year back the Italian and some Indian papers started highlighting about the murky deal.  The issue of kickbacks in the deal was in the public domain for nearly one year. During the Italian probe even the names of Indians surfaced.  Why the Indian Government did not order a probe?
• In the audio tape interception, there is also description of how the accused even discussed on how they can manage in Indian courts, etc.  How they had destroyed all the evidence from the hard disc, etc.
• The story of one of the main accused Christian Michel is even more interesting.  His father was also a Defence dealer.  Similar to this case, way back in 1986, when (Late) Shri Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had visited India and had impressed upon him to buy AW30 choppers from AugustaWestland.  I do not know how the deal finally materialized despite some objections raised by his the then advisers.  The then 62-million pound deal turned out to be a disaster.  In a chopper crash at least 19 persons were killed and subsequently, those fleets were benched and then sold in 1991 as scrap for 9 million pounds.  That itself was a scam of its own kind.
• In July 2012 the chargesheets relating to 12VVIP AW101Chopper were filed in a Naples Court and still the Government of India did not bother to order a probe. There is a mention of “The Family” in two places in the said chargesheet.  Now, who is ‘the Family’ we got to know.  The Congress people claim that the reference of “The Family” is towards the ‘Tyagi Family’.   But it is not true as Tyagis’ names have been separately mentioned in the chargsheet as “Tyagi family”.  Therefore, there is a need to probe to know who is this other “the Family”.

• We demand a CBI probe monitored by the Supreme Court, sending of Letter Rogatory, identifying the money trail, ensure the extradition of the accused to India, identify and book the prime accused in India who received the Kickback and swung the deal in favour of Finmeccanica/Augusta Westland.