CBI raids Chandigarh firms over VVIP chopper deal
Published: 13th March 2013 04:19 PM | Last Updated: 13th March 2013 04:19 PM | A+A A-
The CBI Wednesday raided the offices of two companies here in connection with alleged kickbacks in the VVIP chopper deal.
The
raids, according to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sources, were
conducted by teams from Delhi at the offices of Aero-Matrix in Rajiv
Gandhi Information Technology Park in Chandigarh and IDS Infotech in
Mohali, 10 km from here.
The names of these two companies emerged
in the controversy around India's $750-million AgustaWestland chopper
deal with Italian company Finmeccanica.
The choppers are for the
VVIP squadron of the Indian Air Force (IAF) which ferries the
president, prime minister and other top dignitaries.
There are allegations of kickbacks by Finmeccanica to the companies and high-profile people in India to clinch the deal.
The
bribe payments, as investigated by Italian probe agency, were allegedly
routed to India through IDS Tunisia and IDS Mauritius. Investigators
are yet to establish the curious link between IDS in Tunisia and
Mauritius and IDS Infotech here.
The balance sheets of IDS Infotech do provide a link to IDS Tunisia.
Aero-Matrix
was set up here in 2007 with Parveen Bakshi as its chief executive
officer. Before this, Bakshi was working with IDS Infotech, which has
entrepreneur Pratap Aggarwal as its managing director.
Bakshi
earlier told the media here: "We are only an engineering service
provider (to AgustaWestland). We are not concerned with the (bribery)
allegations."
However, one of the two foreign directors of
Aero-Matrix, Guido Ralph Haschke, who is Switzerland-based, is being
investigated by the Italian agency on bribery charges in the deal.
Aero-Matrix records also show links to Mauritius-based Infotech Design Systems Ltd.
The
defence ministry recently initiated action for cancellation of contract
for procurement of 12 AW101 helicopters for the use of VVIPs.
The
scam came to light when the Italian government arrested Finmeccanica
CEO Giuseppe Orsi for allegedly paying bribes to clinch the chopper
deal.
The government launched a CBI probe into the bribery charges last month.