New Delhi: 

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma issued a notice to the ED on James' plea in which he sought the bail condition of furnishing a surety of Rs 5 lakh to be waived. The court listed the matter for hearing on April 22.

While granting bail to James in the money laundering case, the high court, on March 4, directed him to furnish a personal bond and surety of Rs 5 lakh each besides surrendering his passport before the trial court.

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sought a response from the Enforcement Directorate on a plea seeking modification in bail conditions by alleged middleman Christian Michel James in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland money laundering case.

The lawyer appearing for Michel also requested a change in the condition of surrendering his passport. He said that Michel's old passport had expired and would take four to eight weeks to get a new one.

It had said James's prolonged incarceration "without any foreseeable conclusion of trial" would infringe his fundamental right to a speedy trial under Article 21 of the Constitution, which overrode the statutory bar on bail under the anti-money laundering law.

Taking into account the directions of the top court, the high court had asked the ED to request the trial court to impose necessary conditions before releasing James on bail.

James was granted bail by the Supreme Court in the related CBI case on February 18. The high court had granted him relief in the ED case, saying it was an "exceptional situation" where the accused was in custody for over 6.2 years, but the trial had not yet commenced due to an incomplete investigation.

During the hearing, the lawyer appearing for Michel said that the High Court had put a condition of keeping an Indian citizen as a surety while granting bail. He said that Michel is not a citizen of India, and he does not have any relatives here. Also, he does not have any deep relations with India. In such a situation, it is impossible for him to present an Indian as a surety.

What is the AgustaWestland case?

The ED charge sheet filed against James in June 2016 alleged he received 30 million euros (about Rs 225 crore) from AgustaWestland.

James was extradited from Dubai in December 2018 and was subsequently arrested by the CBI and the ED. The CBI, in its charge sheet, claimed an estimated loss of 398.21 million euros (about Rs 2,666 crore) to the exchequer due to the deal that was signed on February 8, 2010, for the supply of VVIP choppers worth 556.262 million euros.

The AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam is a corruption case where it has been alleged that bribes were paid to “middlemen”, perhaps even politicians when India agreed to buy 12 AgustaWestland helicopters built by Italian defence manufacturing giant Finmeccanica at an estimated cost of Rs 3,600 crore. James is among the three alleged middlemen being probed in the case, the other two being Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa.

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