Michel moved the court a day after the ED filed its supplementary chargesheet, informing that “kickbacks were paid to defence officials, bureaucrats, media persons and important political persons of the ruling party”.A Delhi special court on Thursday refused to share with Christian Michel — alleged middleman arrested in connection with the AgustaWestland chopper deal case — a copy of the investigation report furnished by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) into the purported leakage of the supplementary chargesheet.
The ED submitted a sealed cover report before Special CBI Judge Arvind Kumar, stating that they have found who leaked the supplementary chargesheet.
ED’s counsel D P Singh stated that in the sealed cover, they have also put a pendrive with a video on how the content was made available to media houses. He also told the court that they have enclosed the call detail records of certain persons behind this.
Singh questioned the maintainability of Michel’s plea, seeking an inquiry into the leak of the chargesheet to the media.
“The application by accused Christian Michel is not maintainable and his concern that the chargesheet was leaked before the court took cognizance, is baseless. The cognizance of the chargesheet was taken long back in 2017,” the ED counsel said.
Michel’s advocate Aljo K Joseph, however, objected to the ED’s contention and said he wants to respond to it through a written reply. The counsel also urged the court that he should be shown the ED’s report as the agency “was not interested in a fair trial in a court of law and only wants a trial by media” which is causing “prejudice to the rights” of his client.
“I should be put to knowledge about the contents of the sealed cover investigation report,” Joseph said.
The court replied, “Not now. Let the court go through it first.”
Michel moved the court a day after the ED filed its supplementary chargesheet, informing that “kickbacks were paid to defence officials, bureaucrats, media persons and important political persons of the ruling party”.
