ED questions Emaar MGF MD Shravan Gupta, probes ‘funds from Mauritius’
The Emaar-MGF issue was raised by BJP member Kirit Somaiya in the Lok Sabha today, as he demanded a probe into the chopper deal.THE ENFORCEMENT Directorate (ED) on Wednesday questioned the managing director of realty firm Emaar MGF in connection with its probe into the VVIP chopper deal. It is also looking into some funds that Emaar MGF reportedly received from Mauritius.
Sources said Shravan Gupta, managing director of Emaar MGF, was questioned about alleged middleman Guido Haschke, who was an independent director of the realty firm from September to December 2009.
They said Gupta, whose statement was recorded under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), was also questioned about “business links” with Rahul Gandhi’s aide Kanishka Singh and sale of two shops to the Congress vice-president in a shopping mall in south Delhi in 2005.
The questioning lasted for over five hours.
“Since a complaint has come and some new facts have been brought to the fore, we have questioned Gupta. The company has also received some funds from Mauritius, which we are looking at,” said an ED official.
Much of the alleged bribe money in the AgustaWestland deal was reported to be routed through Mauritius via a subsidiary of IDS Tunisia.
In a statement released to the media, Emaar MGF said, “Executive vice-chairman and managing director of Emaar MG is a law abiding responsible corporate. He has done no wrong and not violated any law of the land… Emaar MGF, as also Mr Gupta, will cooperate fully in every possible manner in the ongoing investigation and will meet the authorities as and when required. We have done no wrong and are fully compliant with all the laws and regulations in the utmost responsible manner.”
Dismissing the “allegations” as “false, baseless and without any substance”, the statement said the company would “do everything within the ambit of law to protect its and its executive’s reputation, image, commercial and business interests.”
Emaar MGF had earlier denied any “business links” with Kanishka Singh, and said Haschke was an independent director for an “extremely brief period”. With regard to Rahul, the company said the two shops were sold in December 2005 at the market rate, and denied that they were leased or bought back by the company.
The Emaar-MGF issue was raised by BJP member Kirit Somaiya in the Lok Sabha today, as he demanded a probe into the chopper deal.
The ED, which has begun the second round of questioning of witnesses and accused in the case, is set to question former IAF Chief S P Tyagi on Thursday.
Meanwhile, CBI has asked the then Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Plans) N V Tyagi to appear before it for questioning. CBI sources said N V Tyagi was part of a team of senior officials who were involved in the deliberations to change the technical specifications of the VVIP helicopters.
The agency questioned S P Tyagi for the third consecutive day on Wednesday. It also questioned advocate and former board member of Aeromatrix Gautam Khaitan, who is named in the CBI FIR as one of the accused in the case and has been chargesheeted by ED for laundering bribe money on behalf of the alleged middlemen in the deal.
Sources said the focus of the questioning was Khaitan’s reported links with alleged middlemen Carlo Gerosa and Guido Haschkhe.http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/ed-questions-emaar-mgf-md-shravan-gupta-probes-funds-from-mauritius/
AgustaWestland deal: Send us property details of 10 officers of IAF, ministry, ED writes to Defence
Former Air Chief Marshal S.P. Tyagi arriving at the CBI headquarters in New Delhi in connection with alleged corruption in AgustaWestland choppers deal. (File Photo)Probing alleged payoffs in the AgustaWestland helicopter deal, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) wrote to the Ministry of Defence earlier this week, seeking property details of 10 officers of the ministry and the Indian Air Force (IAF).
Sources said the list of officers was drawn largely on the basis of a handwritten note, allegedly prepared on the directions of suspected middleman James Christian Michel. The note, which Michel has now disowned, is part of the order of the Milan appellate court that handed prison terms last month to former chiefs of AgustaWestland and its parent company Finmeccanica.
In a letter to the Prime Minister on November 8, 2015, Michel claimed the note was wrongly attributed to him, that it was fake and was prepared by Guido Haschke, another suspected middleman, to throw investigators off track.
The note mentions several initials which investigators believe refer to IAF officers, bureaucrats and politicians. Mentioned as a “budget-sheet” in court papers, it has initials that supposedly correspond to designations held by different people at that time.
The Milan court mentioned the note while citing the statement of a witness identified as Venere.
ED sources said their “request” for details of assets of individuals is “not an indication of bribe flow but just an examination of allegations” that the note suggests.
Highlights: August House debates AgustaWestland
“We have requested the Ministry of Defence to send us details of properties declared by officers who held designations suggested in the Michel note. We are trying to verify suggestions that the note makes. There are some names on our list which are not part of the note,” an ED officer said.
According to the Milan court order, the note mentioned initials, perhaps denoting designations of officials under various heads of “AF” and “Bur”. It is the same note that mentions “AP” under the head of “Pol”. The court order has described these heads as “Air Force”, “Bureaucrats” and “Politicians”. Against each head, there are figures in Euros.
Against “AF”, the figure is Euro 6. Against “Bur”, the figure is Euro 8.4. Against “Pol” is the figure of Euro 15/16.
Initials mentioned under “AF” include, Dch, PDSR, 2FTT, DG Maint. Under the head “Bur”, the initials mentioned include DS, JS Air, AFA Air and DG Acq, CVC and Auditor gen.
Chopper scam: ED ex-director under scanner for sitting on probe
- Shishir Gupta, Hindustan Times, New Delhi |
- Updated: May 05, 2016 02:11 IST
Documents accessed by Hindustan Times suggest former Enforcement Director Rajan S Katoch wanted the kickback scandal to be investigated under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999. (Shutterstock)
Among the many questions swirling around the tainted AgustaWestland deal are those that loom over the conduct of former Enforcement Director Rajan S Katoch.
The officer, who was unceremoniously removed from his position on August 1, 2014, after taking over in March 2012 and retired as Secretary (Heavy Industry) this February, is alleged to have dragged his feet for nearly seven months in the money laundering investigation related to the Rs 3,600-crore deal.
Documents accessed by Hindustan Times suggest Katoch wanted the kickback scandal to be investigated under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999. FEMA — where a made-out offence is compoundable — is a milder law compared to the much stringent Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, that can lead to arrest and confiscation of property of the accused. Katoch apparently overruled junior colleagues in the Headquarters Investigation Unit (HIU) who recommended that the case be registered under the PMLA.
There is documentary evidence to show that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sent its First Information Report (FIR) of March 12, 2013 on the purchase of 12 VVIP Augusta-Westland helicopters for 556.26 million euros to the Enforcement Directorate on December 11, 2013, a full nine months after investigations began.
The CBI sent the FIR after being reminded by the ED in writing on June 18, 2013 as the latter could only investigate the proceeds of a crime on the basis of the report.
After receiving the FIR, Katoch marked it for action to the HIU.
On April 7, 2014, when the first round of polling for 2014 Lok Sabha elections began, Katoch got the case file from HIU. On May 7, the penultimate round of nine-phase Lok Sabha elections, Katoch sent the case file to the Delhi Zonal Unit rather than then Special Director Karnal Singh, who was the overall in-charge of the Central Region comprising National Capital Region (NCR), Lucknow and Patna. Subsequently, the file moved significantly only after the NDA government took power.
HT tried repeatedly to contact Katoch but he remained unavailable.
Finance ministry sources confirmed that the file was put up to Karnal Singh on July 1, 2014 as Special Director (Central Region) and a PMLA case was registered on July 3, 2014, with Katoch being duly informed. Singh took over as Enforcement Director on August 15, 2014.
“There was considerable delay in registering the PMLA case and this has made our task tougher. For instance, call data records are only kept by the service providers for only a year. So if ED had registered the case within a month of CBI, then the CDRs would have helped in tracing the money trail,” said a senior official.
Another ED source sounded defensive about Katoch’s role.
“The ED Director himself does not conduct any investigation. The CBI had registered its FIR in the AgustaWestland scam in March 2013. Two months later, at a time the CBI had not shared its FIR with the agency, ED began proceedings suo motu under FEMA provisions,” he told HT.
“A case under the PMLA could not have been registered then since a copy of the prior FIR in the same case was required for that. The HIU probed the case under FEMA.”
The source went on to say, “When the CBI sent its FIR, the same was forwarded to ED’s Delhi zone. It was the Delhi zone that subsequently registered a case under PMLA in July 2014 to probe the case and filed a charge sheet too.”
Lightning rod Swamy winds up Cong members in House
TNN | May 5, 2016, 03.50 AM IST
NEW DELHI: The rush of MPs — till then chatting and savouring food and hot drinks in central hall — towards the Rajya Sabha chamber as Subramanian Swamy began speaking said it all. The BJP MP might have become a lightning rod for disruption, but neither side wants to miss out on the pyrotechnics.
In the event, Swamy did manage to get the goat of Congress benches with his references to party chief Sonia Gandhi and dogged refusal to authenticate a particular document unless leader of opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad did so too.
Swamy's demand that political personages named in the Italian court documents be questioned by the CBI and even be subjected to custodial interrogation set off protests from the Congress benches.
He said that notes of European middlemen clearly pointed to "budgets" for officials, politicians and media and the persons whose initials were mentioned should explain on the dealings.
The paper in question was the alleged note of Choppergate middleman Christian Michel that Swamy claimed has been referred to by Azad, though the Congress functionary angrily denied the imputations the nominated MP was making.
Before Swamy spoke, the much anticipated showdown in the Rajya Sabha had failed to spark into a flame. The MP began by dwelling on Congress allegation that it was NDA that had changed the ceiling specification for the helicopters, a move that helped the AgustaWestland machines.
Swamy said the NDA-era decision was intended to ensure that the acquisition did not face a single-vendor situation. It was not aimed at altering the ceiling and it was UPA that did this in 2006. The UPA also tweaked the cabin size to virtually rule all of AgustaWestland's competitors, he said.
Challenging the Congress argument that the Modi government, despite blacklisting AgustaWestland's holding company Finmeccanica, had opened the door to several exemptions, Swamy said it was more to do with fulfilling existing contracts.
Beginning the discussion, BJP MP Bhupendra Yadav went into the CAG report on AgustaWestland choppers to refer to former defence minister A K Antony's notings against the choppers being tested abroad. Besides, the chopper tested was not the one for acquisition.
Yadav said the final cost of the chopper deal was six times higher than that anticipated by the Italian firm itself. The terms of warranty were made more favourable for the supplier and the procurement was in excess of the requirement.
In the event, Swamy did manage to get the goat of Congress benches with his references to party chief Sonia Gandhi and dogged refusal to authenticate a particular document unless leader of opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad did so too.
Swamy's demand that political personages named in the Italian court documents be questioned by the CBI and even be subjected to custodial interrogation set off protests from the Congress benches.
He said that notes of European middlemen clearly pointed to "budgets" for officials, politicians and media and the persons whose initials were mentioned should explain on the dealings.
The paper in question was the alleged note of Choppergate middleman Christian Michel that Swamy claimed has been referred to by Azad, though the Congress functionary angrily denied the imputations the nominated MP was making.
Before Swamy spoke, the much anticipated showdown in the Rajya Sabha had failed to spark into a flame. The MP began by dwelling on Congress allegation that it was NDA that had changed the ceiling specification for the helicopters, a move that helped the AgustaWestland machines.
Swamy said the NDA-era decision was intended to ensure that the acquisition did not face a single-vendor situation. It was not aimed at altering the ceiling and it was UPA that did this in 2006. The UPA also tweaked the cabin size to virtually rule all of AgustaWestland's competitors, he said.
Challenging the Congress argument that the Modi government, despite blacklisting AgustaWestland's holding company Finmeccanica, had opened the door to several exemptions, Swamy said it was more to do with fulfilling existing contracts.
Beginning the discussion, BJP MP Bhupendra Yadav went into the CAG report on AgustaWestland choppers to refer to former defence minister A K Antony's notings against the choppers being tested abroad. Besides, the chopper tested was not the one for acquisition.
Yadav said the final cost of the chopper deal was six times higher than that anticipated by the Italian firm itself. The terms of warranty were made more favourable for the supplier and the procurement was in excess of the requirement.