CBI court grants bail to 4 ex-IAF officers in AgustaWestland case

A special court on Saturday granted bail to four former Indian Air Force (IAF) officers in the AgustaWestland chopper deal corruption case after they appeared before it following summons issued on the last date of hearing.

Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) hudge Arvind Kumar granted bail to retired Air Force AVM JS Panesar, retired air commodore N Santosh, retired air commodore SA Kunte and retired wing commander Thomas Mathew. The court granted bail to them on each furnishing a bail bond of Rs 1 lakh and one surety in the same amount.

While granting bail the court imposed some conditions on the accused persons.

Their bail was not opposed by the special prosecutor for the CBI.

The matter has been listed for August 27 for further hearing.

During the previous hearing, the court had granted bail to former defence secretary and former CAG Shashi Kant Sharma in the case. Sharma was granted bail on furnishing a personal bond of Rs 2 lakh with one surety in the like amount.

Advocates R K Handoo and Aditya Chaudhary, who appeared for Sharma, had submitted that he was a retired IAS officer and served as defence secretary to the Government of India till May 2013 and thereafter from 2013 to September 2017 as Controller & Auditor General of India, a constitutional post, and is presently leading a retired life.

Lawyers had further submitted that the applicant was innocent and has been falsely implicated in the case and had nothing to do with the offences alleged in the charge sheet, and that the applicant has cooperated with the investigation and has appeared before the CBI.

It was submitted that the applicant is a pensioner and an income tax payee who was 69 years old and is suffering from age-related ailments. It was submitted that the applicant suffered a heart attack and stenting has been done and is still under treatment by a heart specialist.

The AgustaWestland corruption case is being probed by the CBI and ED, and was registered following allegations that bribes were paid during the UPA regime to "middlemen", perhaps even politicians, when India agreed to buy 12 helicopters built by the Italian defence manufacturing company Finmeccanica at an estimated cost of Rs 3,600 crore. In 2014, the deal was scrapped by the NDA government.