Defence Minister, AK Anthony today expressed sadness as well as anger that Congress vice president, Rahul Gandhi has been dragged into the controversial AgustaWestland chopper deal.
“It is very sad…there is a limit for these kinds of allegations,” Anthony said, when asked about the BJP’s allegations dragging Rahul Gandhi into the scam. He nonetheless rubbished the allegations as “baseless” and said that the case is being investigated by the CBI.
BJP leader Kirit Somaiya has reportedly written to the CBI accusing that the relative of Kanishka Singh – a close political aide of Rahul Gandhi – owns Emaar MGF Land Limited and made profit from the chopper deal.
“We have nothing to hide, CBI is inquiring into that, whoever is guilty will be punished and nothing can be said beyond that at this point,” the defence minister said.
A joint CBI team, as well as the Defence Ministry’s Joint Secretary and Acquisition Manager (Air) Arun Kumar Bal, is slated to leave for Italy to investigate into the case of kickback given to officials in India to strike the 3,546 crore chopper deal.
Under the contract 12 helicopters were meant to be delivered for VVIPs’ travel by AgustaWestland, which is a UK-based subsidiary of Italian conglomerate Finmeccanica.
The chief of Finmeccanica, Giuseppe Orsi has been arrested after an investigation in Italy found that the company bribed Indian officials to strike the deal.
In the controversy, the former Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi has also been embroiled for allegedly tweaking guidelines to get Finmeccanica into the bidding process. Some of the revelations were unearthed during investigation of Finmeccanica officials during investigation in Italy.
Thereafter, India’s Defence Ministry issued to a show-cause notice setting a week’s time to AgustaWestland, asking why the contract should not be cancelled in view of the corruption charges.
Meanwhile, Anthony said that "making allegations and taking judgment positions" at this juncture is not correct. “Let’s have patience and let the CBI inquiry report come out and after that whoever is involved in the case will be punished,” he said.
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