Christian Michel, extradited from UAE in Augusta case in 2018, gets bail in ED case
The Delhi high court’s ruling on Tuesday entitles Christian James Michel, a British national, to walk out of jail
NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court on Tuesday granted bail to Christian James Michel in the money laundering case linked to the controversial AgustaWestland chopper deal.
Tuesday’s verdict by justice Swarana Kanta Sharma entitles the British national to walk out of jail since he has already been granted bail by the Supreme Court in the case being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Michel was extradited from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in December 2018 and has been in custody since then.
The Supreme Court granted bail to Michel on February 19 in the case investigated by CBI. “This is the worst kind of incarceration where CBI has not completed trial despite filing two charge sheets and documents relied by you have not been given to him,” a bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said in its verdict.
Michel approached the Delhi high court for bail in the ED case after the city court had refused to release him on bail.
In his petition filed through advocate Aljio K Joseph, Michel contended he had already spent six years in jail for the offence in which he could only be awarded a maximum jail term of seven years, and that the trial of the case was yet to begin.
The petition also underlined that he was not extradited to be tried for the money laundering offence. Michel, Joseph submitted, could not be a flight risk since his passport had already expired.
ED represented by public prosecutor Zoheb Hossain and advocate Vivek Gurnani opposed Michel’s bail asserting that he was a flight risk with no roots in India. Gurnani further submitted that previously, the courts while denying him bail in the money laundering case had observed that the conditions under section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) were not met. The said section requires the court to be convinced that there are reasonable grounds to believe the accused is not guilty and is not likely to commit any offence while on bail. These conditions generally make it challenging for an accused in a money laundering case to secure bail.
Michel, a British national, was accused of being the alleged middleman in the deal to buy AgustaWestland choppers and was charged along with other accused under Section 8 of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
CBI claimed in its first charge sheet filed on September 1, 2017 that, in 2004, officials at Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Special Protection Group (SPG) and air force and ministry of defence, agreed to change the mandatory service ceiling of the helicopters from 6,000 metres to 4,500. This, it alleged, ultimately benefitted Anglo-Italian firm AgustaWestland. The irregularities in the award of the contract to AgustaWestland led to an estimated loss of Euro 398.21 million (around ₹2,666 crore) to the government in the Euro 556.262 million ( ₹3726.9 crore) contract according to CBI.
The contract — alleged violations and kickbacks in the deal became one of the biggest controversies during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime — for supplying 12 VVIP choppers was given to Anglo-Italian firm AgustaWestland in February 2010. The deal was eventually scrapped in 2014.
Michel was named by CBI in its September 2017 charge sheet, and ED initiated a probe soon after into the money trail following the payment of alleged kickbacks in the deal. In 2018, he was arrested in the UAE and extradited to India on December 4 that year.
