Official sources in Delhi on Tuesday said that a Dubai court has ordered for the extradition of Michel in the VVIP choppers deal case.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday said it has not received any communication yet from UAE authorities regarding the extradition of British national and alleged middleman Christian Michel in the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland VVIP choppers deal case.
On Tuesday, official sources in Delhi said that a Dubai court had reportedly cleared the extradition of Michel to India on September 2, 2018.
The CBI said Wednesday that it was awaiting confirmation from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on reports about the extradition of Christian Michel, an alleged middleman in AgustaWestland helicopter scam case, from the UAE.
CBI sources said the agency was in touch with MEA officials but they did not receive any official communication from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
"We are awaiting official communication in this regard," one of the sources said.
Earlier today, the Ministry of External Affairs said that it had not received any formal communication on the extradition order.
They said the court pronounced the judgement Tuesday after India had officially made the request to the Gulf nation sometime back, based on the criminal investigations conducted in this case by the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
They added that the full contents of the order against Christian Michel James, 54, are expected to be known by Wednesday as the legal pronouncement is in Arabic and is being translated in English at the behest of Indian authorities.
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today termed the order as a positive development and said the news has created a "sense of unease" in some leaders in India.
Responding to a question on the Dubai court order, Prasad said, "It is a good development." "But I must point out that I notice a profound sense of unease in some leaders," he said in an oblique reference to the Congress party.
The order was being seen as a major shot in the arm to the agencies-- CBI and ED -- probing the case.
The ED, in its charge sheet filed against Michel in June 2016, had alleged that he received EUR 30 million (about Rs 225 crore) from AgustaWestland. The money was nothing but "kickbacks" paid by the firm to execute the 12 helicopter deal in favour of the firm in "guise of" of genuine transactions for performing multiple work contracts in the country, it had said.
The CBI had filed charge sheet in the matter in September last year, naming former IAF Chief SP Tyagi as one of the accused.
Besides him, the agency has also chargesheeted retired Air Marshal JS Gujral along with eight others, including five foreign nationals. Michel is one of the three middlemen being probed in the case, besides Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa, by the ED and the CBI. Both the agencies have notified an Interpol red corner notice (RCN) against him after the court issued a non-bailable warrant against him.
Michel has been extensively interviewed by the Indian media in Dubai in the past and both the agencies want him to join the probe to take the case forward.
The CBI had earlier alleged that during Tyagi's tenure as air force chief, the Air Force conceded to reduce the mandatory service ceiling for VVIP helicopters from 6,000 metres to 4,500 metres.
The Air Force was earlier vehemently opposing the service ceiling reduction on the grounds of security constraints and other related reasons.
It has claimed that reduction of the service ceiling, or the maximum height at which a helicopter can perform normally, allowed UK-based AgustaWestland to come into the fray as, otherwise, its helicopters were not even qualified for submission of bids.
The ED investigation found that remittances made by Michel through his Dubai-based firm Global Services to a media firm he floated in Delhi, along with two Indians, were made from the funds which he got from AgustaWestland through "criminal activity" and corruption being done in the chopper deal that led to the subsequent generation of proceeds of crime.
On January 1, 2014, India 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 paying kickbacks to the tune of Rs 423 crore by it for securing the deal.
(With PTI inputs)
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