Only concern if ‘extraneous’ factors' influenced Agusta VVIP chopper deal: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court said on Thursday said that it was only concerned with whether the Agusta VVIP chopper deal made by the Chhattisgarh government in 2006-07 was influenced by extraneous factors to the detriment of the public exchequer.

A bench, comprising Justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and U U Lalit, gave two weeks’ time to activist lawyer Prahant Bhushan to respond to documents submitted by the Raman Singh government in its defence to the allegations made in a PIL.

The documents will not be made available to the media, the court ruled, at the insistence of the lawyers for the state government.

The chopper deal was concluded in 2006-2007. “You need to answer few questions like the alleged sham bid, why only that particular helicopter, opening of a foreign bank account by the CM’s son…,” the bench told senior advocates Harish N. Salve and Mahesh Jethmalani.

“We are only concerned whether there was any fraud or hanky panky committed on the public exchequer,” the bench said, hinting it would close the case if it was prima facie convinced that there was no wrong-doing in the deal.

The court said that it was not questioning the decision of the executive government to go for choppers but demanded an explanation over why the state had bid for a particular chopper.

The court will now hear the case again on January 18, 2018.