VVIP chopper case: Court takes cognisance of ED chargesheet

NEW DELHI: A special court on Tuesday took cognisance of a charge sheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against two Dubai-based firms and one of their directors in a money laundering case related to the Rs 3,600 crore VVIP chopper deal.

Special Judge Arvind Kumar said that prima facie there was enough evidence on record against the accused -- M/s UHY Saxena and M/s Matrix Holdings and their director Shivani Saxena, who is currently in judicial custody.

The court summoned the accused on October 3. In the supplementary charge sheet, the ED has told the court that Saxena was an “active” director of the Dubai-based firms. All the three accused have been chargesheeted by the agency under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Saxena was arrested by the ED on July 17 from Chennai in Tamil Nadu. The final report also mentions the name of her husband Rajiv Saxena, who too is a directors in these two firms and has been evading ED summons to join the probe.

However, he has not been arrayed as an accused so far and the agency said another supplementary charge sheet may follow. Saxena and her husband are residents of Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, an archipelago which is home to the most expensive properties in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the report said.

It alleged that the two Dubai-based firms were the entities “through which the proceeds of crime have been routed and further layered and integrated in buying the immovable properties/shares, among others” in this case.

The agency claimed that its probe found that Agustawestland, United Kingdom, had “paid an amount of Euro 58 million as kickbacks” through two Tunisia-based firms.

“These companies further siphoned off the said money in the name of consultancy contracts to M/s Interstellar Technologies Limited, Mauritius and others which were further transferred to M/s UHY Saxena and M/s Matrix Holdings Ltd, Dubai and others,” the charge sheet has said. The ED, in this case, had also arrested Delhibased businessman Gautam Khaitan who is currently out on bail. The ED had registered a PMLA case in 2014 and named 21 people, including Tyagi, in its money laundering FIR.

On January 1, 2014, India had scrapped the contract with Finmeccanica’s British subsidiary Agustawestland for supplying 12 AW-101 VVIP choppers to the IAF over alleged breach of contractual obligations and charges of kickbacks of Rs 423 crore for securing the deal. MUMBAI: A special NIA court here on Tuesday granted bail to two accused in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case.

Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sudhakar Dwivedi alias Shankaracharya, facing conspiracy charges, were granted bail by NIA Court judge SD Tekale.

Both are accused of attending conspiracy meetings, where the terror attack was planned, along with others. Two key accused in the case, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit, were granted bail earlier. The Bombay High Court granted bail to Thakur earlier this year, while Purohit was given the relief by the Supreme Court last month.

Six people were killed and nearly 100 others injured when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle exploded in Malegaon town in Nashik district, about 200 km from here, on September 29, 2008.