AgustaWestland: Michel’s contacts in 2007 govt ensured competition was disqualified in trial stage

New Delhi, Dec 5: The big news is that James Christian Michel has been extradited to India. This would provide a significant boost to the investigation agencies probing the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam case.

Dubbed as the historic consultant of AgustaWestland, Michel is alleged to gone out of his way to ensure that this deal worked. He moved his contacts in the then UPA government to ensure that the competition to AgustaWestland was disqualified early.

As per the investigation files, he made over a 100 visits to India and his aim was to deliberately trying to disqualify the competition.

He visited India at least 100 times since 1993, during which he built contacts within the government. Sources tell OneIndia that he had built such strong links with the government that is alleged to have confidential defence files in his possession. He also had documents relating to the Cabinet Committee on Security.

The biggest challenge for Michel was to ensure that a competitor did not bag this deal. AgustaWestland was facing stiff competition from M/S Sikorsky. The problem for Michel was that Sikorsky was quoting a much lower price and almost bagged the deal.

Michel made an early visit to India and tried to deliberately disqualify the competition. The investigations that were conducted further in this regard showed that Sikorsky was disqualified in the trial stage itself. The un-opened commercial bid that was submitted in February 2007 was returned by the Defence Ministry back then.

CBI officials say that it was Michel who moved his contacts to ensure that the financial bids of Sikorsky were not opened.