The Supreme Court on May 18 asked the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI] and the Enforcement Directorate [ED] to respond to a plea for bail made by Christian Michel, an alleged middleman in the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal scam.
A Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud remarked that Mr. Michel has already spent nearly four years behind bars as an undertrial while issuing notice to CBI and the ED. The court scheduled the next hearing in mid-July, post the summer vacation.
"I have undergone the maximum sentence as per the provisions. The investigation is still not complete. I have undergone three years and six months as of now and I was in custody in Dubai before my extradition," Mr. Michel, represented by advocates Aljo Joseph, Sriram Parakkat and M.S. Vishnu Shankar, said.
The lawyers argued that their client was a businessman with networks spread across the globe and it was important for him to prove his innocence.
"He has fully cooperated with the investigation. He had met with CBI officials in Dubai multiple times. He had written letters to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, extending his cooperation in the investigation in the year 2016 and also expressing his willingness to come to India for investigation. Only request made by him was that he may be granted bail," Mr. Michel's plea said.
The petition said Mr. Michel had already undergone 600 hours of custodial interrogation by both the CBI and the ED.
Most of the others named as accused by the agencies have either "never been arrested" or they have been enlarged on bail.
The petition said the "illegal detention, deportation and custody" of Mr. Michel had been assailed by the United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
The petition claimed that the Italian courts had "renounced" further prosecution of the accused in charges identical to those alleged against Mr. Michel in the current first information report (FIR).
The plea argued that Mr. Michel could not be punished for the same offence for which he has been exonerated in Italy. They argued that Article 20(2) of the Constitution to not to be prosecuted or punished for the same offence twice and similar tenets of the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime should be read conjointly.
Mr. Michel had approached the apex court after the Delhi High Court dismissed his bail plea.
The AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam is a corruption case which hit headlines in 2012. Bribes were allegedly paid to “middlemen”, perhaps even bureaucrats and politicians, to secure a deal with India to buy the choppers built by Italian defence manufacturers Finmeccanica at an estimated cost of ₹3,600 crore.
