Finmeccanica and GKN are Italy and United Kingdom based companies respectively that merged their respective helicopter subsidiaries, Agusta and Westland Helicopters, in March 1999.
| Finmeccanica- Italy | Agusta |
| GKN- UK | Westland |
Merged 
in 1999
GKL Sold 
its Share to Finmeccanica- Italy in 2004.
| February 2010 | India signed a contract to purchase twelve AgustaWestland AW101 helicopters | Why? to carry the President, PM and other VVIPs. |
| February 2013 | Italian authorities arrested Giuseppe Orsi, the CEO of Finmeccanica, which is the parent company of AgustaWestland | Why? for using unfair means and giving bribe to procure the contacts. |
Indian Defence Minister (at that time), AK Antony ordered a probe, by the 
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the case.
CBI registered a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) against 11 persons, including the former 
Chief of the Indian Air Force, Air Marshal SP Tyagi on 25 February 2013.
The preliminary enquiry of the CBI found adequate evidence regarding the accused and registered an FIR on 13 March 2013.
The 
FIR named 13 persons which included, Air Chief Marshal SP Taygi, his three brothers, brother of former Union Minister Santosh Bagrodia and Chairman and Managing Director of IDS Infotech, Pratap Aggarwal.
Four companies that were named in the FIR included, Finmeccanica, AgustaWestland and Chandigarh-based IDS Infotech and Aeromatrix. It emerged in the preliminary enquiry that IDS infotech was used for routing kickbacks to India.
Popularly name das Chopper scam or Choppergate.
Role of UPA Government in the Scam?
A note dated 15 March 2008, which was presented in the Italian court indicating Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi is the driving force behind the VIP chopper purchase.
The note further asked middleman Peter Hulett to target key advisors to Sonia Gandhi and lists the names of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Ahmed Patel (political secretary to Congress President, Sonia Gandhi), Pranab Mukherjee, M. Veerappa Moily, Oscar Fernandez, M. K. Narayanan and Vinay Singh.
The note also contains the bribes to be paid out (in code words) as, "AF" €6 Million, "BUR" €8.4 Million, "Pol" €6 Million and "AP" €3 Million.
Steps taken during UPA Government
| February 2013 | UPA Government ordered a 30 member Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to investigate the matter. |
| January 2014 | UPA government cancelled the Rs 3,600 crore helicopter deal with AgustaWestland. |
Reason to Cancel the Contract: “breach of the Pre-contract Integrity Pact and the agreement by AWIL (AgustaWestland International Ltd)" and AWIL was black-listed.
Did India recover the money?
After the cancellation of the contract, India encashed Rs 250 crore made by AgustaWestland as bank guarantee in the Indian banks in January 2014, and requested the Italian government to retrieve the bank guarantee amount made by the firm in Italian banks which was Rs 2364 crores.
Finally, India was able to recover the entire amount paid to AgustaWestland, which was about 45% of the total contract value of Rs 3600 crore.
Judgement of the Italian Court – October 2014
The Italian court, after due investigations, passed its judgement on the case in October 2014.
The court acquitted:
| Ex-IAF chief S.P. Tyagi | Former Finmeccanica CEO Giuseppe Orsi | Former AgustaWestland head Bruno Spagnolini |
Italian Court convicted and sentenced both of them to two years in prison.
AgustaWestland agreed to pay the fine, but reiterated that it knew nothing about the alleged bribery allegations.
Latest development in the case:
On 07 April 2016 an Italian Court of Appeals, just like our High Court, overturned the lower court’s judgement passed in October 2014 and convicted former Finmeccanica chief executive Giuseppe Orsi for corruption and falsifying invoices and sentenced him to four and a half years in prison.
The former head of AgustaWestland, Bruno Spagnolini, was also sentenced to four years in jail and fined 7.5 million Euros, a sum related to the amounts deemed to have been allegedly paid in bribes.
The Italian Court of Appeals has observed that there are “unmistakable indications regarding corruption of an Indian officer”, pointing at Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi, the then Chief of Air Staff, who allegedly reduced the ceiling height of Agusta Westland choppers.
Court noted that prior to Tyagi becoming the Air Force chief, the IAF had opposed purchasing AgustaWestland's AW101 as they were not capable of flying in high-altitude areas like Siachen and Tiger Hill.
The Congress party and the former Defence Minister AK Antony argues that, the UPA government had cancelled the deal, ordered a CBI inquiry, not a penny was paid, not one chopper was bought, then where is the question of any wrong doing.
However, BJP believes that it has sufficient grounds to nail the UPA and bring to the public domain, the role played by Sonia Gandhi and others in the bribery case.
Now Indian Court to act:
Though the Italian court names Dr Manmohan Singh and Mrs Sonia Gandhi, it does not give any proof of their direct involvement.
The major weapon of attack with the BJP against the Congress is the letter written by Christian Michel, the main middleman, to the head of the AgustaWestland, which describes the Congress President as one the main proponents of the deal.
However, the evidence provided by the judgement of the Italian Court of Appeals, will strengthen the ongoing case against the 13 accused in the Indian court.
