AgustaWestland: One Of Tyagi's Cousins Admits Dealings With Middlemen, Says CBI

New Delhi: One of the cousins of former IAF chief SP Tyagi, Sanjeev Tyagi, has admitted to have had financial dealings with European middlemen Carlo Gerosa and Guido Haschke in AgustaWestland chopper deal, CBI claimed today.

Chances of first arrests by CBI in the high-profile case increased as sources in the agency claimed that Sanjeev and another accused Gautam Khaitan, who were questioned today, remained evasive and concealed information.

The sources claimed Sanjeev Tyagi has also admitted property dealings with the former Air Chief.

"But when asked about the details, he did not give proper details and remained evasive during the questioning on some crucial questions," said one of the officials.

Message sent seeking his reaction remained unanswered.

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Besides Mr Sanjeev Tyagi and Mr Khaitan, two other accused in the CBI FIR Sandeep Tyagi and Rajeev Tyagi were questioned by the agency today individually in separate chambers at its headquarters here for over eight hours.

CBI sources claimed Mr Khaitan, former board member of Aeromatrix--one of the firms accused of receiving alleged bribe in the deal, "concealed" information regarding his companies and AgustaWestland.

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He was allowed a break presumably to bring some documents which he was not carrying with him at the time of questioning.

The sources said Mr Khaitan yesterday had admitted setting up a shell company IDS Tunisia through which alleged kickbacks were received from AgustaWestland which were then forwarded to different countries and from there to India.

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CBI had registered a case against Mr SP Tyagi along with 13 others including his cousins and European middlemen.

The allegation against Mr SP Tyagi is that he reduced flying ceiling of the helicopter from 6,000m to 4,500m (15,000ft) which put AgustaWestland helicopters in the race for the deal without which its choppers were not even qualified for submission of bids.

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Mr Tyagi has denied allegations against him and said the change of specifications, which brought AgustaWestland into contention, was a collective decision in which senior officers of Indian Air Force, SPG and other departments were involved.

"My financial dealings with Carlo and Haschke date back to 2004 and Feb 2005, which is precisely two years before the tender was published and six to five years before the order was placed by Indian government and on top of it payments received by me were for power sector jobs all received by bank and income tax paid and nothing to do with this damn helicopter," Mr Sanjeev Tyagi later said in response to CBI's claim.