Agusta case: HC reserves order on Christian Michel’s bail plea
Section 45 requires that the court to be convinced there are reasonable grounds to believe the accused is not guilty, and is not likely to commit any offence while on bail.
The Delhi high court on Friday reserved its verdict on a bail plea by British arms consultant Christian James Michel seeking bail in a money-laundering case linked to the AgustaWestland chopper deal amid strong opposition by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
ED, represented by advocate Vivek Gurnani, told justice Swarana Kanta Sharma that Michel was a flight risk with no roots in India, and asserted that he did not meet the conditions under Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for granting bail.
Section 45 requires that the court to be convinced 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.
Though Michel maintained that he served the maximum sentence of seven years as an under-trial, ED opposed the contention saying that his custody by probe agencies in Dubai, from where he was extradited in December 2018, could not be treated as a period of actual custody under PMLA.
“The period he (Michael) says that he has spent in Dubai cannot be treated as a period of actual custody undergone [for a money-laundering offence], since the date of arrest [by ED] is December 2018 and it has not been more than seven years. It has been 6 years, 2 months, 17 days... He is a flight risk,” Gurnani submitted to the court.
On February 19, the Supreme Court granted bail to Michel in a related AgustaWestland corruption case being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), taking exception to the agency’s failure to begin the trial. Deciding his bail plea, a bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said, “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.”
Michel will walk free if he is granted bail in the ED case as well.
In his petition for bail, filed in the high court through advocate Aljio K Joseph before the high court, Michel contended he already spent six years in jail for the offence in which he could be awarded a maximum jail term of seven years, with the trial of the case yet to begin. He added that investigation was still going on with regards to a complaint that was registered in 2014, and that he was not extradited to be tried for the money-laundering offence.
Joseph also told the court that Michel could not be a flight risk since his passport had already expired.
Michel was accused of being the alleged middleman in the AgustaWestland deal.
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 afterinto 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.
