Congress leader Veerappa Moily stated that the negotiation for Agusta began during former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's regime and all his advisors and defence ministers were involved.
Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com offers his unique perspective on several issues of the day.
The AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal will once again dominate the proceedings in Parliament on Thursday.
Michel, extradited from Dubai, was arrested by the ED on December 22 last year.
In his plea, Michel said the investigation regarding him was over and no useful purpose would be served by keeping him in further incarceration.
Orsi was at the helm of AugustaWestland when the deal was struck and he is suspected of involvement in the payment of bribes.
The chargesheet said according to the 'budget sheet, 30 million were paid to Air Force officers.
The probe agency sought nine days further remand of Michel for his custodial interrogation saying he was not cooperating in the investigation of the case.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday questioned former Indian air force Chief S P Tyagi and two others in connection with alleged irregularities in the AgustaWestland helicopter deal.
The Indian Air Force headquarters in a reply said, 'The information sought vide your RTI application is not available at this HQ.'
A Delhi court on Saturday sent former Air Force Chief S P Tyagi, arrested in Rs 450 crore Agusta Westland bribery case in procurement of 12 VVIP helicopters, to police custody for four days after the CBI said he was needed to be quizzed to unearth a "very large conspiracy having international ramifications".
The Central Bureau of Investigation will soon approach United Arab Emirates authorities seeking extradition of British national and alleged middleman Christian Michel James in connection with its probe in the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland VVIP choppers deal.
The agency questioned him on various aspects of the case including his alleged links with middlemen, his alleged trips to Italy, reasons behind changing specifications, and relations with his cousins on Monday, the sources said.
'We will continue to ask why Modi and his government were benefactors to this AgustaWestland company, why within 40 days they overturned the ban?'
The British high commission had sought consular access to Michel after he was arrested in the first week of December.
Michel, who was extradited from Dubai recently, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on December 22 and sent to a seven-day custody of the agency over money-laundering charges in the scam by a court.
Saxena, a director of Dubai-based firms UHY Saxena and Matrix Holdings, is one of the accused named in the chargesheet filed by the ED in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland scam.
A special court denied Christian Michel bail in the related Central Bureau of Investigation case.
Rajiv Saxena, an accused in AgustaWestland chopper deal scam, was extradited from Dubai, UAE, to India .
The former board member of Aeromatrix, which was allegedly used to route bribe amount, denied the payments were part of kick backs to clinch the deal.
In a first, the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) officers reached out to several ministries in the last week of April as part of a confidence-boosting measure. The meeting brought the CAG officials and those from the ministries across the table to discuss the pain points in their relations. CAG of India Girish Chandra Murmu took this novel step because of growing tensions between those audited and the auditor.
The Congress on Monday sought a thorough probe in the Rafale defence deal and demanded answers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after a French media report claimed that 1.1 million (Rs 9.5 crore) was paid to a "middleman" by the aircraft manufacturer.
With an aggressive Opposition and unyielding government, important legislation could be the biggest casualty, as details of the helicopter contract surface.
Special judge Arvind Kumar issued notice to the agency and directed it to file a reply on Michel's plea, which had stated that he had not named anybody in connection with the deal during investigation by the ED and that even though the court has not taken cognisance of the documents, in order to make the entire case a sensation again in the media, the agency had leaked the chargesheet.
He was subjected to a marathon 10-hour questioning on Thursday by ED investigators.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has started another probe against UK-based helicopter supplier AgustaWestland for alleged corruption in the supply of Light Utility Helicopters to Army.
In a bid to corner the Congress after it launched a tirade against it for imposition of President's rule in Uttarakhand, the ruling dispensation has decided to raise issues of AgustaWestland Chopper scam, Aircel Maxis scam and the Ishrat Jahan case in the Parliament on Wednesday.
CBI had registered a case against Tyagi along with 13 others including his cousins and European middlemen in the case.
The ED, in its chargesheet filed against Michel in June 2016, had alleged that he received 30 million (about Rs 225 crore) from AgustaWestland.
Swiss authorities have arrested Guido Ralph Haschke, the alleged middleman in the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal, on charges of bribery, Italian media reported.
The Comptroller and Auditor General on Tuesday slammed the Defence Ministry and Air Force for "several instances" of deviation from rules in the procurement of VVIP choppers in the Rs 3,727 crore AgustaWestland deal.
At Amish Tripathi's book launch, Varun Dhawan spoke about his love for Suppandi.
Besides Joseph, one of the lawyers defending Michel is a member of the Congress' youth wing while the father of another is a party member, Patra claimed at a press conference.
After India scrapped its Rs 3,600 crore deal for supplying VVIP choppers, Anglo-Italian firm AgustaWestland on Friday said that the contract termination notice sent to it does not offer any firm basis for taking any action against it.
The ex-IAF chief was questioned in the same case by CBI for the last three days. This is the first time that the ex-Chief of Staff of the Indian Air Force has been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate.
The session of Rajya Sabha came to an end on Friday after passing 12 bills and wasting 19 hours due to disruptions over various issues like imposition of President's rule in Uttarakhand and AgustaWestland helicopter deal controversy.
The chairman asked Swamy to produce documents he quoted from in the AgustaWestland debate after Congress leader Jairam Ramesh raised the issue.
...with extravagant claims in both the eastern and western sectors, observes Ambassador Talmiz Ahmad, as India is fixated on asserting its border claims based on the McMahon Line.
The government vowed to track down the main beneficiaries of the kickbacks so that "we can do" what "we could not do in Bofors
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday said that he conveyed India's concerns about the alleged unethical means used in securing the 2010 contract for AgustaWestland helicopters to British Prime David Cameron, and added that the latter has assured him of his government's cooperation in the investigations.
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