's request to revoke the "approver" status accorded to accused-turned-witness Rajiv Saxena in the Rs 3,6000 crore VVIP chopper scandal.){kind=link}
A local Delhi court on Thursday turned down Enforcement Directorate (ED)’s request to revoke the “approver” status accorded to accused-turned-witness Rajiv Saxena in the Rs 3,6000 crore VVIP chopper scandal.
Consequently, Saxena will continue to remain approver in the case until a higher court set aside the Special CBI court order.
Saxena, a director of two Dubai-based firms – UHY Saxena and Matrix Holdings – is one of the accused named in the charge sheet filed by ED in the AgustaWestland case.
Last October, the ED had moved a local court seeking to withdraw the approver status alleging that Saxena has made incomplete disclosures.
In March last year, a Delhi court had permitted Saxena to become an approver in the case on the condition that he will make “full disclosure”.
In the previous hearing, the ED had told the court that not only Saxena withheld crucial information during the investigation, but also misled the agency.
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is yet to file its supplementary charge sheet in the case and Saxena may figure as one of the accused in it.
Saxena had told the investigators that he was fooled by advocate Gautam Khaitan, co-accused in the Augusta Westland case. Saxena had also submitted that he along with other accused had laundered money using a company, which was shown to be owned by him.
Saxena further told that he had a bank account in Mauritius which was used to operate the company.
He had also revealed the details of the number of companies that he had created at the instance of advocate Khaitan, to park and route the kickbacks.
He also disclosed his close link with the co-accused Christian Michel, an alleged middleman in the case and details of the payments made to him.
The ED had alleged that in connivance with Khaitan, Saxena provided a global corporate structure for laundering illegal proceeds of the crime for payment to various political persons, bureaucrats and Air Force officials to influence the contract to supply 12 VVIP helicopters in favour of AgustaWestland.
Maintaining that AgustaWestland had paid Euro 58 million as kickbacks through two Tunisia-based firms, the ED has alleged that “these companies further siphoned off the said money in the name of consultancy contracts to M/s Interstellar Technologies Limited, Mauritius and others which were further transferred to M/s UHY Saxena and M/s Matrix Holdings Ltd, Dubai and others”.
It was alleged by the probe agency that the two Dubai-based firms were the entities “through which the proceeds of crime have been routed and further layered and integrated in buying the immovable properties/ shares, among others” in this case.
On January 1, 2014, India had scrapped the contract with Finmeccanica’s British subsidiary AgustaWestland for supplying 12 AW-101 VVIP choppers to the IAF over alleged breach of contractual obligations and charges of kickbacks of Rs. 423 crore paid by it to secure the deal.