Embraer is a Brazilian aerospace corporation (File).
New Delhi:
The Central Bureau of Investigation, after a seven-year probe, has charged arms dealer Vipin Khanna, who died in 2019, and his son Arvind Khanna with alleged corruption in connection with a $210 million DRDO contract to procure three aircraft from Brazilian aerospace giant Embraer in 2008. Mr Khana’s counsel, Gautam Khaitan, and Anoop Kumar Gupta, a businessman, have been similarly charged.
This comes after a 2016 investigation by the United States’ Department of Justice into the Brazilian aerospace giant claimed it had “engaged an agent to secure the sale of three highly specialised military aircrafts to (the) Indian Air Force”. The investigation focused on a $5.76 million payment made by a subsidiary to a Singapore shell company in 2009.
READ | 2008 Embraer Bribery Case: Central Agency Arrests Gautam Khaitan
NDTV has exclusive access to the CBI chargesheet, which says that in 2005 Embraer “engaged Vipin Khanna to secure the sale” of the aircraft after he impressed on Embraer “his proximity to the higher political authorities in India”. Mr Khanna was to be paid “nine per cent of the contractual price”.
In 2008, the government signed a purchase agreement with Embraer for three modified EMB-145 jets for Rs 1,800 crore; the DRDO had revised this down from Rs 1,875 crore.
READ | Enforcement Directorate Files Chargesheet In Embraer Case
The CBI has alleged that after award of the contract, Embraer marketing chief Sergio Bellato was threatened with legal action for seeking Vipin Khanna’s support without an agreement in writing.
The CBI chargesheet says Mr Khanna’s lawyer then “negotiated” the figure of $5.76 million as “commission” for his client’s services.
The central agency has alleged Mr Khaitan then incorporated a shell company in Singapore through Dev Inder Bhalla and executed a false agreement, dated November 2009, with the Embraer subsidiary for the above figure.
This was nominally for promoting sale of two Embraer aircraft to an Austrian firm, but that had been executed before this agreement.
In addition, sources have said Mr Khaitan also arranged another false agreement, also for November 2009, between a Interdev Aviation Services and a Dubai firm, with an Indian subsidiary, for $3.27 million as an “introducer fee” in connection with the fraudulent sale to the above Austrian firm. Neither Interdev not the Dubai firm of Anoop Kumar Gupta provided any service to Embraer, or each other, under this “agreement”, the CBI has claimed.
The CBI contends these agreements were meant to route $5.76 million from Embraer, of which Rs 27.63 crore was sent to the India subsidiary.
In a significant aside, while taking cognisance of the chargesheet, a CBI court allowed the agency to investigate the role of public servants, including former political executives, in connection with this case.
Arvind Khanna was a Punjab Congress MLA who quit in 2005. He joined BJP in 2021 and contested the 2022 Assembly poll from Sangrur.
