 Welcome to NewsClick. Today, we will be discussing with D. Raghunandan, our defence expert, the case of Augusta Westland, so-called bribe and corruption scam. In February 2010, Government of India had signed a contract with Augusta Westland for supply of 12 helicopters for VVIPs. In February 2013, three years after signing the contract, Government of India, the Ministry of Defence suspended the contract because in Italy, there were allegations which were level against the parent company FinMechanica, which owns Augusta Westland Corporation for having paid bribes to get this contract. Government of India suspended the contract, but then subsequently in 2014, before the Government's term came to an end, A. K. Anthony then Union Ministry of Defence cancelled the contract. Raghunandan, my first question to you is, Government of India 2013 suspended and subsequently in 2014 cancelled the contract. So, what is the nature of corruption in the Augusta Westland deal which takes up so much of media space? Well, two things are there. The first is that the terms of reference for the helicopter purchase were modified during the course of the contract negotiations. There was earlier a height prescribed for eligibility of the copter, which was then brought to a lower height level, which then made Augusta Westland eligible for the contract, otherwise it would not have been. What is the significance of this lowering of height? See, the significance would have been that the VVIP helicopter routes in India are fixed keeping in mind that VIPs are also transported to high altitude airports, particularly the Siachen Glacier and surrounding areas. But if you prescribe a lower limit and if VIP helicopters are not able to reach those limits, then you are back to ferrying them on Air Force helicopters. So, that was the idea and lowering of the ceiling has enabled Augusta Westland to bid for the contract. Which committee decides on the height of the? So, this would have been in fixing the qualitative requirements and in the process of fixing the qualitative requirements, the funny thing was that this change seems to have been made midway rather than right in the beginning. So, there was a revision of the terms midway through the process and that is what has triggered the interest from the Indian side. And then when the Italian court said there has been bribe taking, two and two got added together and the hackles went up here in India and there was suspension of the deal as you said and then later a cancellation. Now, in the, this case has gone through various, you know, chapters so to say, like in a drama of the which is unfolding because the last we heard, at least highest court in January 2018 acquitted all the accused and said that they found no evidence of bribery. Now, if the Italian court came to that conclusion, then wherein lies the problem? Yeah, two aspects I think need to be kept in mind here. One is that the proceedings in Italy have not been in controversial, there was controversy when the Italian courts first ruled that there was bribery and then there was controversy when the courts ruled that there was insufficient evidence to initiate proceedings on bribery charges. That makes it very difficult now for an outside party like in India to decide which court ruling was appropriate or not. We also must keep in mind that it is not as if the ruling has given a clear check, but that it said it was unable to find evidence of guilt sufficient to convict. On the Indian side, the problem is and there is a court case pending, so I do not want to comment too much on it, but there were suspicions that high ranking officials who are part of the committee who may have been responsible for changing the height eligibility requirements may have been in receipt of payments as middlemen or as service providers etc. either they themselves or their close relatives and there is a court case pending on that in India. So, there seems to be some evidence on the Indian side that there was some wrongdoing there and if the Italian courts findings had gelled with this, it would have added ammunition to the case in the Indian courts. So, right now there is a bit of uncertainty involved in this plus the fact that over a period of time some of the leading figures on the film mechanic side have come under clouds of suspicion of their own and each has thrown some dust in the eyes of the other and that has added gris to this mill of suspicion which surrounds the deal. So, right now it is a bit murky and one wishes that there had been a little more definitive evidence either on the Italian side or on the Indian side. What about the role of so called Christian Michel which the CBI and the enforcement directorate and the BJP is making much of. See, this is the problem that I was just referring to. There is Christian Michel on the one hand and there is Guido Haashke on the other. These are the two principles. And the chairman of film mechanic also. And they were these were the principles who seem to have been involved. Now over the years each of them has thrown accusations at the other and Christian Michel has continuously maintained that he knows that bribes were given and that Haashke is the person who knows the answer to these questions. So, it looks as if as I said there is some muck involved there and which needs to be unraveled. The surprising part to me is the one sided way in which the present government, the BJP government is pursuing this process. In the way in which I have outlined it, if there is some murky dealings involved in terms of revision of the qualitative requirements and the height specification, if there is sufficient evidence of bribe taking on the Indian side, that would have been one thing. And if the BJP government had conducted an impartial inquiry into it. But the way the proceedings are being conducted lends suspicion to the idea that the BJP is cherry picking from possible evidence. And as we know much of the investigation certainly in the initial periods and in the absence of corroborative evidence from Italy is in the nature of innuendo. And we also know from the past various CBI and other enquiries in India there are selective leaks to the press which are more in the nature of innuendo. Some tidbits of information which are leaked to make it appear that there has been discovery of solid evidence which may or may not stand scrutiny of the courts. That is where we seem to be now and to my mind it is a bit doubtful whether the bringing to India of Christian Michel the way in which the Indian justice system proceeds which is you virtually incarcerate the person who is assisting you in the inquiry. And then you proceed to make investigations whereas I would have assumed a process of natural justice would involve having at least some prima facie solid evidence before you incarcerate somebody and follow up the information. Doing it this way looks as if there may be pressure being brought on Christian Michel to give evidence in a certain way. And well Christian Michel himself has been suggesting that he is being implicated in order to implicate Sonia and Rahul Gandhi of which there had been no prior evidence in the past. Vague references are being dropped about notings on various diaries to the family. Earlier the family was believed to refer to the family of senior Air Force officials who may or may not have been responsible for changing the specifications of the helicopter. These things do not lend credibility to. Also the very manner in which we got Christian Michel extradited. Extradited. So we just do not know and frankly speaking the way in which the CBI, the enforcement directorate and other agencies of the government are being used today to selectively go after opponents of the current government has already detracted from the credibility of these agencies. And when target is being made of Rahul and Sonia Gandhi who even during the days when AK Antony was looking at it and he stopped the proceedings, instituted an inquiry. There was no suggestion that these were people were involved in the proceedings in any way. This seems to be an afterthought which is then being pursued in order to gather evidence to prove what you assume to be true. You think there are two issues that have been raised in the media. One is look at the size of the corruption. According to the CBI the total sum that they are talking about which was paid as bribes amounts to rupees 256 crores. In a country where the scale of defense and other scams have run into thousands of crores this sounds like a small amount which is not to say that this therefore should not be considered but that should be kept in mind. On the other side as you yourself pointed out that it was AK Antony who first suspended then cancelled and instituted in the CBI inquiry. Now the question that is being asked is why would UPA too and that too union minister belonging to Congress party do all this if the party itself was involved. So to my mind if I can sum up my perception on this I think the present government is going into this in a way to utilize the CBI in a manner that would cast sufficient innuendo which is not going to get resolved either way before the next elections and the innuendo and the process itself would then lend grist to the mill of the BJP in the days. Going through as much of mud as possible so that sum would stick. This is not to say that I am not ruling out the possibility of anybody being involved but this seems to me to be a perception going by the known facts of earlier investigations etc. I do not know if there were an impartial inquiry if one could have expected an impartial inquiry under the present dispensation maybe we would have known the truth. That is all for today but Augusta Westland again is an issue on which we will be coming back as more information comes out in public domain which will then decide whether innuendos that are being made actually are backed by facts or these are just electoral gimmickry in order to indict an opposition party for scam. Thank you for watching NewsClick if you have any feedback do get back to us.