The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday recorded the statement of former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in connection with the procurement of 43 aircraft from Airbus during the UPA regime.
Mr. Chidambaram was questioned for about six hours, according to a senior agency official.
The ED probe is based on a case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation in May 2017, following a Supreme Court directive to probe the allegations of irregularities in the agreements for the purchase of 111 aircraft worth about ₹70,000 crore for Air India and the erstwhile Indian Airlines. While 43 airplanes were procured from Airbus, the rest were from Boeing.
The agency has already recorded the statements of several officials of the national carrier and the suppliers.
The Comptroller and Auditor General, in its 2011 report, had found several loopholes in the agreements. The report said: “To enable effective price negotiations, it is normal (and was also necessary) to make an assessment through commercial intelligence gathered globally to assess a reasonable or threshold price (based on comparable prices paid by other buyers and other factors)”.
“However, no benchmarks for the cost of the aircraft were set by AIL [Air India Limited]/ MoCA [Ministry of Civil Aviation] before negotiations were initiated with the manufacturers at various levels,” it said.
