A Delhi court on Wednesday granted bail to former Air Force Chief SP Tyagi and others in the money laundering case related to the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal case.
Special judge Arvind Kumar granted bail to Tyagi and his cousins involved in the case. They have been asked to furnish a bail bond of Rs 1 lakh with one surety of the like amount.
Tyagi along with his cousin Sanjeev Tyagi and Delhi lawyer Gautam Khaitan was arrested on December 9, 2017.
The bail was granted after they appeared before the court in pursuance to summons issued against them.
According to media reports, foreign individuals such as Italian middlemen Carlo Gerosa and Guido Haschke and firms that failed to appear for the hearing were not granted bail.
The court had on July 24 summoned former AgustaWestland and Finmeccanica directors Giuseppe Orsi and Bruno Spagnolini, Tyagi and others as accused in the case.
The court had asked the accused to appear before it on 12 September, while issuing fresh non-bailable warrants against Italian middlemen Carlo Gerosa and Guido Haschke and Dubai-based businessman Rajeev Saxena in the case.
Besides the six, the court also summoned as accused 28 Indian and foreign individuals and companies, including lawyer Gautam Khaitan, AgustaWestland and its parent company Finmeccanica SPA.
The court had passed directions after taking cognisance of the charge sheet, saying there was enough evidence against the accused in the matter relating to the alleged money laundering to the tune of around Euro 28 million.
However, foreign individuals and firms failed to appear before the court today.
The ED, in its charge sheet, has alleged that money was laundered through multiple foreign companies which were used as fronts to park alleged kickbacks.
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.
(With PTI inputs)