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Chopper scam: Delhi HC reserves verdict on Christian Michel James plea seeking release from prison
The law officer argued that Michel has not completed the maximum sentence, as he faces allegations of forgery, which is punishable with life imprisonment.
New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Tuesday reserved verdict in a plea by Christian Michel James, the alleged middleman in the Agusta Westland VVIP chopper case, seeking release from prison on the ground that he has already served the maximum sentence for the offences for which he was extradited, even as the CBI, ED and Centre opposed the same.
The petition in which Michel also challenged Article 17 of the India-UAE extradition treaty (“treaty”) was opposed by agency’s lawyer additional solicitor general (ASG) DP Singh and Centre’s lawyer Satya Ranjan Swain before a bench of justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja. The said article, allows India to prosecute people for offences for which extradition is sought and for “connected offences” as well.
The additional solicitor general submitted that although Michel was extradited from the United Arab Emirates in December 2018 based on a 2017 chargesheet accusing him of cheating, criminal conspiracy, and offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, including bribing of a public servant, the agency’s subsequent chargesheet filed in September 2020 also included charges of forgery.
The law officer further argued that Michel has not completed the maximum sentence, as he faces allegations of forgery, which is punishable with life imprisonment.
He further submitted that the extradition order was clear since it records “misuse of position or job, money laundering, collusion, fraud, misappropriation and offering illegal gratification to be the allegations levelled against him and there was no bar for trying him also for the offence of forgery, since Article 17 of the treaty granted power to try him for the “other connected offences” too for which the extradition is sought.
While adopting ASG’s submissions on Michel’s release, Swain argued that Article 17 of the treaty was intended to permit the trial of offences arising from the same cause of action and to ensure that fugitives do not obtain technical immunity for offences that are a direct component of the criminal conspiracy for which they were extradited. He added that the expression, “offences connected therewith” is a standard text and is similar to the provision of Extradition Treaty between India and Oman, as well as the Extradition Treaty of India and Kuwait.
Michel had approached the high court against the trial court’s August 7, 2025, order denying his request to be released from prison and challenged Article 17 of the treaty.
In his petition, argued by advocate Aljo K. Joseph, he had asserted that he had already undergone five years of sentence for the offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, for which he was chargesheeted in 2017, the agency later invoked section 467 of the IPC, which carries a life imprisonment, through supplementary chargesheets by virtue of article 17 of the Treaty.
Michel was extradited from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in December 2018. He was, though, granted bail by the Supreme Court in the CBI case on February 19 and in the ED case by the Delhi High Court on March 4, but remains in prison.
The trial court in August had refused to release Michel from prison, noting that he had been accused of serious offences carrying a punishment of up to life imprisonment.
The CBI had alleged that senior officials in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Special Protection Group (SPG), and Air Force agreed in 2004 to tweak the mandatory service ceiling of helicopters to favour AgustaWestland. This allegedly caused a loss of €398.21 million (approx. ₹2,666 crore) to the government in a deal worth €556.262 million ( ₹3,726.9 crore). The ED is probing the money trail linked to kickbacks in the deal.
