OP Khaitan & Co

The detention of OP Khaitan & Co managing partner Gautam Khaitan has been extended again today by a special court on request of the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

Gautam Khaitan, managing partner of OP Khaitan & Co, is back in jail, after a special court re-extended his Enforcement Directory (ED) custody over the weekend by another six days, to a total of 11 days now, following fresh black money allegations made by the ED that are apparently not related to the dodgy Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland chopper deal.

Gautam Khaitan, the managing partner of OP Khaitan & Co, has been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) again for alleged graft in the Choppergate scam, this time together with former Air Force Marshal SP Tyagi and Tyagi’s cousin, reported the The Indian Express and others.

OP Khaitan & Co managing partner Gautam Khaitan, who had been arrested in late 2014 for nearly three months in the choppergate investigation, has again been called on for questioning by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Firstpost and others reported:

CBI on Wednesday questioned former IAF Chief SP Tyagi and examined lawyer Gautam Khaitan for the first time after an Italian court held that bribes were paid to clinch the Rs 3600 crore VVIP Helicopter deal.

CBI sources said both arrived at the agency headquarters on Wednesday morning to appear before the investigation team.

Khaitan had recently also received press coverage for having referred a client to notorious Panamanian offshore firm Mossack Fonseca.

OP Khaitan & Co managing partner Gautam Khaitan - who had spent more than three months in jail during the CBI’s AgustaWestland chopper scam investigation in late 2014 - had provided a reference for a client to work with the controversial Panama-headquartered law firm Mossack Fonseca, reported the Indian Express as part of its ongoing Panama Papers coverage.

A special Delhi court today granted bail to OP Khaitan & Co managing partner Gautam Khaitan accused in a money laundering case related to the AgustaWestland VIP chopper deal.

Granting bail to Khaitan, the Central Bureau of Investigation Special Judge VK Gupta directed him to furnish a personal bond of Rs 10 lakh and two sureties of the like amount.

The judge ordered Khaitan to surrender his passport, not to leave the country without prior permission of the court and not to tamper with the evidence in the case.

During arguments, Enforcement Directorate (ED) prosecutor NK Matta opposed Khaitan’s bail plea alleging that he was behind the “parking” of alleged kickbacks in the matter and the agency was conducting further probe into the matter.

Defence counsel PV Kapur and advocate PK Dubey argued that the other accused, who were allegedly the recipients of purported bribe, had not been arrested so far while Khaitan was behind bars for over three months.

Khaitan was on the board of the Chandigarh-based company Aeromatrix and was arrested a day after the ED conducted a search of his premises Sep 22 last year.

The supply of 12 VIP helicopters from AgustaWestland came under scrutiny after Italian authorities alleged that the company paid a bribe to clinch the deal with India, inked in February 2010.

Following these allegations, India Jan 1, 2014, terminated the Rs.3,600 crore (about $770 million) deal with AgustaWestland for the purchase of the choppers meant to ferry the president, the prime minister and other VIPs.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Nov 2014 had filed the charge-sheet naming Khaitan, his wife Ritu, Chandigarh-based firm Aeromatrix and two Italian middlemen, Carlo Gerosa and Guido Haschke, as accused in the case and booked them for the offences under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

However, the ED had registered a case in this deal in July 2013 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and booked in its criminal complaint former Indian Air Force chief SP Tyagi, foreign nationals Carlo Gerosa, Christian Michel and Guido Haschke, companies like AgustaWestland, its parent company Italy-based Finmeccanica, Chandigarh-based IDS Infotech and Aeromatrix as well as two companies based in Mauritius and Tunisia, a few other firms and unidentified people.

The ED named 21 entities in the case. The Central Bureau of Investigation lodged a separate case in March 2013 against Tyagi and others in connection with the kickback allegations.

A court has extended OP Khaitan & Co managing parter Gautam Khaitan’s 7-day custody by another five days at the request to the enforcement directorate, reported the Indian Express.

Senior counsel PV Kapur, representing Khaitan in the choppergate scam related anti-corruption investigation, argued that Khaitan was “a soft target. More serious allegations have been levelled against other co-accused. Khaitan, being a lawyer, is the softest target whereas others have not been arrested yet.”