A court in Delhi on Wednesday granted bail to former Air Marshal Jaspal Singh Gujral on a bail bond of Rs 2 lakh in the AgustaWestland helicopter scam case, ANI reported.
The court told the Central Bureau of Investigation to supply e-copies of the chargesheet to all the accused, and said that it would hear the case next on May 20, 2018.
The CBI had chargesheeted Gujral, along with former Air Force chief SP Tyagi and eight others on September 1. Tyagi’s cousin Sanjeev Tyagi, advocate Gautam Khaitan, alleged Indian middleman Michael James and European middlemen Carlo Gerosa and Guido Haschke were also named by the agency.
The AgustaWestland helicopter deal is related to an agreement signed in 2010 to buy 12 helicopters from the Italian firm. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government was in power at the time. The deal was put on hold after Italian authorities arrested Giuseppe Orsi, the head of the firm’s parent company Finmeccanica, in 2013.
The CBI has claimed that SP Tyagi conspired to reduce the service ceiling for VVIP helicopters from 6,000 metres to 4,500 metres, which the Air Force had opposed before because of security concerns, so that AgustaWestland qualified for submitting bids for the deal. The CBI has said that the deal was worth Rs 3,767 crore, of which 12% was allegedly paid in bribes.
SP Tyagi was arrested on December 9, 2016, and was granted bail on December 26. The CBI’s Special Court granted bail to Sanjeev Tyagi and Khaitan on January 4, 2017.
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