VVIP Chopper case: Nothing wrong in media publishing charge sheet, Enforcement Directorate tells Delhi court

After seeking an enquiry into the leak of the supplementary charge sheet in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam, the Enforcement Directorate on Friday told a Delhi court that the charge sheet was a public document and there was no harm even if the media published or telecast it.

The ED stated this in response to an application filed by the counsel of AgustaWestland accused Christian Michel James, alleging that the charge sheet was purposely leaked by the probe agency. The ED's counsel stated that the application was not maintainable as the cognisance was already taken on December 20, 2014. "As such no illegality or prejudice has been caused in the instant case, contrary to the averments in the application," stated the counsel for ED.

Vishnu Shankar, Michel's lawyer, informed the court that they would file a rejoinder. "During the time of filing of the supplementary charge sheet, our client was not given a copy and later it was leaked to the media. The court had fixed the hearing for another date which means the charge sheet until then, was to be a court document," said Vishnu.

ED's counsel maintained that the charge sheet was a public document and the application of the accused should be dismissed. Special CBI Judge Arvind Kumar deferred the matter to April 20 after the accused sought time to submit documents in response to the reply filed by the ED to his application.

It may be recalled that last week, the ED had requested the court to conduct an enquiry in the charge sheet being leaked and even requested the court to issue a notice to a news channel, calling it a serious matter.

The court directed the 'ahlmad' (court staff) to file a report containing information related to the charge sheet, including how many copies were filed by the agency.

Christian Michel had through his counsel earlier stated that he had not named anyone — politicians, bureaucrats and others — in connection with the ongoing investigations contrary to ED's assertion of him having named Congress leaders. Michel had earlier moved an application before the court stating that he has not named anyone in his statement before the agency.

Christian Michel, a British national extradited from Dubai in December, is one of the three middlemen being investigated over charges of organising bribes to push the chopper deal with decisionmakers in India. Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa are the other two.

The ED said in its document that Christian Michel had said during his questioning that 'AP' stood for Ahmed Patel and 'Fam' stood for 'family' in a diary.

The codewords were allegedly related to alleged kickbacks of 30 million euros paid to Air Force officials, bureaucrats, defence ministry officials and "top political leaders of the ruling party" at the time, says the charge sheet.

The payments were routed through a "complex structure" and withdrawn in cash through the "hawala" route, the ED alleged.

ED had told the court on Thursday that Michel and other accused received 42 million euros as kickbacks in the defence deal.

On January 1, 2014, India scrapped the contract with Italy-based Finmeccanica's British subsidiary AgustaWestland for supplying 12 AW-101 VVIP choppers to the IAF over an alleged breach of contractual obligations and charges of paying kickbacks to the tune of Rs 423 crore by it for securing the deal.

—With agency inputs