VVIP chopper scam: ED summons Tyagi, to quiz him next week

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) issued summons to ex-IAF chief SP Tyagi to appear before it next week, media reported on Friday.

Ex IAF chief Tyagi is accused of having received cash from Guido Ralph Haschke and Carlo Gerosa in relation to the AgustaWestland chopper deal.

Haschke and Gerosa are accused of being the middlemen in the deal.

SP Tyagi and the middlemen are among the 13 individuals named as accused in the CBI’s FIR, which was later used by the ED for filing their separate case under criminal charges of money laundering.

On 26 April, Former IAF chief SP Tyagi denied allegations that he had influenced the Rs 3,600-crore deal for VVIP helicopters in favour of Italy’s AgustaWestland.

“They have blamed me for corrupt practices in which I changed the height to assist AgustaWestland, although this decision was not against the public interest. But I was nevertheless being (called) corrupt,” the former IAF chief said.

Tyagi was accused of calling for changes in specifications of the helicopter and he is said to have passed on that knowledge through his cousins and via middlemen.

On the change of height parameter of the helicopters, Tyagi has said that the reasons on why it was changed is in public domain.

He said it involved two governments led by the NDA and UPA and the National Security Advisors of both the governments were part of the meetings.

“They insisted on SPG and the SPG got into it. They did not like the height, they did not like the single window…these are all in the public domain,” he said.

With inputs from PTI