Paid news jourlist' being grilled: Swamy

AGUSTAWESTLAND DEAL

New Delhi, May 7: As war of words continue between Bharatiya Jata Party and Congress over the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal, newly-appointed Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy on Saturday made a sensatiol revelation that a 'paid news jourlist' is being interrogated in connection with the alleged scam.

Not only this, the BJP MP also claimed that the Enforcement Directorate is looking at another jourlist, who also got Rs 5 crore from Rafale deal.

Both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have been witnessing a huge furore after over the alleged VVIP chopper scam.

The issue has become major political affair in the country after a court in Milan, Italy, jailed AgustaWestland's former head Bruno Spagnolini on the charges of false accounting and corruption in the sale of the firm's 12 VVIP choppers to India.

Some documents submitted to the court allegedly contain the mes of former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, her political adviser Ahmad Patel and former Indian Air Force chief SP Tyagi.

As negotiations between India and France for the sale of 36 Rafale jet fighters are on, a parliamentary panel recently expressed its displeasure over the non-conclusion of the deal.

The deal for the purchase of Rafale jets in fly-away condition was inked during Prime Minister rendra Modi's visit to France in April last year.

Former IAF chief’s brothers, lawyer questioned

New Delhi, May 7: The CBI questioned three cousin brothers of former IAF chief SP Tyagi for the second consecutive day on Saturday along with a city-based lawyer Gautam Khaitan in connection with the alleged payoffs in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland helicopter deal. The three Tyagi brothers - Sanjeev, Rajiv and Sandeep - were questioned for over eight hours at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) headquarters in Delhi. Khaitan was questioned for the fourth consecutive day on Saturday. Apart from S.P. Tyagi, the CBI has also called Pratap Kumar Aggarwal, the chairman of IDS Infotech Ltd (India), and Praveen Bakshi, chief executive officer of Aeromatrix Info Solution Pvt Ltd, on Monday to quiz them in the Agusta case.