INDIA SUMMARIZED

CBI has frozen bank accounts of former Indian Air Force chief S P Tyagi and other Indians named as accused for allegedly receiving kickbacks in the Rs 3,600 crore VVIP helicopter deal. Agency sources said here on April 23 that "certain bank accounts of all the Indian accused" named in the FIR have been frozen by CBI. The bank accounts of Indian companies named in the alleged scam--Aeromatrix Info Solutions Private Limited and IDS Infotech--have already been frozen by the agency, they said. The sources said bank accounts of Tyagi's cousins-- Sanjeev alias Julie, Rajeev alias Docsa and Sandeep--have also been frozen as part of the investigation. Other Indians named in the FIR whose accounts have been frozen by the agency include former Union Minister Santosh Bagrodia's brother Satish Bagrodia, who is also Chairman of IDS Infotech, the company's Managing Director Pratap Aggarwal, Aeromatrix CEO Praveen Bakshi and legal advisor Gautam Khaitan, the sources sa...

The government on February 27 had its way. It went ahead with its decision to have a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the controversial VVIP chopper scam. The Rajya Sabha adopted a motion in the evening constituting a JPC to investigate the AgustaWestland deal amid a walkout by members of the principal opposition party, the BJP, and the Trinamool Congress. The BJP said it did not want such a joint committee because its probe would be futile. It demanded an immediate FIR against suspects in the scam and a strong CBI probe, preferably under the supervision of the Supreme Court. Arguing strongly against yet another JPC, leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, said it would be a pointless exercise because MPs wouldn’t be able to uncover anything new. Jaitley said if the government really had the intention to unravel this scam, it should ask the CBI to get going with the investigation even without the cooperation of the Italian or British authorities....

NEW DELHI: In what has turned out to be a major embarrassment for the  UPA government , President  Pranab Mukherjee  has been named in its factsheet on the  AgustaWestland  helicopter deal, as he was the finance minister of the country in 2005 when the deal was finalised. Mukherjee, however, enjoys constitutional immunity and may not be probed by the CBI over the murky Chopper deal. Barring Mukherjee, two more key decision makers in the AgustaWestland helicopter deal were  Bharat Vir Wanchoo  and  MK Narayanan , who are now Governors of Goa and West Bengal respectively but they too, owing to the office they hold, enjoy constitutional immunity. Wanchoo was the director of the  Special Protection Group  (SPG) while Narayanan was the  National Security Advisor  then. In India, where national elections are due next year, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party  (BJP) lambasted the Congress-led government for not acting sooner o...

The emerging scam in the sale of 12 Italian-made Augusta Westland helicopters for the exclusive use of VVIPs, including the prime minister, is sure to rock the UPA II. The Italian government’s move to arrest its own citizen, Giuseppe Orsi, current CEO of Finmeccanica Group, for alleged corrupt practices in signing the Rs 4000 crore sale agreement with India has already put the  Manmohan Singh  government on the defensive. Alarmed by the swiftness of Italian government, Defence Minister AK Antony has now ordered a CBI investigation in the deal. The main opposition party, the BJP, has promptly jumped on the issue to target the Congress-led UPA and is calling the proposed CBI inquiry a cover up exercise. BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said, “It is ironical that India, whose exchequer was under loot, is keeping silent on the issue and Italy, which benefited from the said deal, is taking action on its own citizen. This is a classic example of cover up by corruption-ridden ...