A Delhi court on Saturday ordered judicial custody for former Air Force chief SP Tyagi and the other two accused till December 30 even as their bail pleas will be heard on December 21.
Tyagi along with his brother Sanjeev aka Julie Tyagi and lawyer Gautam Khaitan were arrested last week by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on charges of bribery and corruption concerning Rs.3,600 crore VVIP chopper deal.
During proceedings at the Patiala House Court, the CBI is believed to have informed the court that it has obtained a statement from the alleged middleman Guido Haschke, who was involved in facilitating the deal, revealing details of the commission that was being paid to Tyagi and his brother. The details were obtained from the Swiss government, sources said.
The three accused were arrested on December 9 by the CBI under Section 120B, Section 420 IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
Tyagi and others have been accused of accepting bribes by Britain-based AgustaWestland that manufactures these AW-101 helicopters. AgustaWestland is a subsidiary of Italy’s Finmeccanica.
On Wednesday, CBI had informed the court about obtaining crucial information through letters rogatory from Italy, Switzerland and Mauritius.
Khaitan had earlier admitted to having setting up a shell company – IDS Tunisia – that was instrumental in routing the kickbacks to India through various countries that were allegedly paid by AgustaWestland.
Tyagi is believed to have also tweaked technical parameters so that the helicopters can win the selection process. He is accused of changing helicopter’s operational flying ceiling to 4,500 metres from the original requirement of 6,000 metres and increasing the cabin height to 1.8 metres. The other strong contender at that time for the selection process was American Sirkorsky's S-29 Super Hawks.
Tyagi is the first retired service chief to be arrested over allegations of graft in a defence deal. He was Air Force chief from 2004-2007.
The former Air Chief Marshall has earlier said in his defence that the decision to change the qualitative requirements was taken collectively by the then Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Ministry of Defence and Indian Air Force (IAF).