AgustaWestland scam: AP Guv's statement recorded

“A CBI team visited Mr. Narasimhan at the Raj Bhavan in Hyderabad to record his statement, as he was part of the March 2005 meeting during which the proposal for scaling down of flight-capability requirement for procurement of the helicopters was discussed,” CBI official told The Hindu.

"During the two-hour-long “meeting”, the official said, the CBI team asked from the former Intelligence Bureau director questions similar to those earlier posed to West Bengal Governor M.K. Narayanan and Goa Governor B.V. Wanchoo, who subsequently put in their papers," the newspaper reported.

The government had issued show cause notice to the AgustaWestland of UK, a subsidiary of Italian defence giant Finmeccanica, on bribery charges in the Rs.4000-crore VVIP chopper deal.

Besides bribing Indian officials for a 12-helicopter deal, Finmeccanica discussed kickbacks for a larger deal with a serving Brigadier in the Indian Army, Italian prosecutors had said.

The report by the investigators said that an alleged middleman for helicopter manufacturer AgustaWestland, a subsidiary of Finmeccanica, touched the feet of former Air Force chief SP Tyagi.

The scandal  involved kickbacks worth upto Rs 360 crores for the deal that was worth about Rs 4,000 crores and allegedly took place during the tenure of Tyagi who headed the air force from 2004 to 2007.

Tyagi had denied the allegations and said that he met one of the alleged AgustaWestland middlemen just once contrary to the charges of "six or seven" meetings.

The middleman Ralph Haschke "confessed" that he met Tyagi six or seven times and once greeted him by touching his feet as a sign of respect, the Italian prosecutors said.

The Italian inquiry also found that in 2003, a serving Brigadier of the Indian Army allegedly demanded $5 million dollars to influence a contract for 197 light helicopters in favour of AgustaWestland.