ED finds emails ‘linking’ lobbyist to Patel’s office

NEW DELHI: Former civil aviation minister and senior NCP leader Praful Patel, who is slated to appear for questioning before the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday in a money laundering case, is set to be confronted with alleged evidence of his office being in touch with resourceful corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar who has a reputation of swinging deals in the civil aviation sector.
Talwar, who was deported from Dubai on January 31 and is now in judicial custody, was in constant touch with the minister’s office, ED sources said. In fact, they claimed that they had in their possession emails exchanged between Talwar and Patel which underlined their proximity as well as the role that the lobbyist played in getting policy tweaked allegedly for the benefit of foreign airlines.
ED will also question Patel on the “evidence” it claims to have gathered about Talwar using his formidable contacts to get scrapped Airbus’s original proposal to set up an MRO (maintenance, repair and operation) centre worth Rs 1,000 crore in India as part of the deal for acquisition of 43 aircraft by Air India.
The agreement clause for MRO was later allegedly altered and the deal was finally signed without Airbus offering to set up the MRO, an important part of the deal. Later, Talwar floated a company and offered to set up the much required service in partnership with Airbus for a similar fee, a senior official investigating the case said.
“India not only lost Rs 1,000 crore worth of MRO which was offered free by Airbus originally but ended up paying a similar amount later to a company floated by the corporate lobbyist,” the officer said, adding that government lost more than Rs 1,000 crore.
Sources alleged that the ED’s probe into Talwar’s dealings showed that Airbus had made two transfers totalling $10.5 million into companies controlled by the lobbyist between August and September 2012, coinciding with the huge orders civil aviation ministry placed for the purchase of aircraft.
The ED’s investigation over the last two years found, sources claimed, that Talwar had received Rs 370 crore in kickbacks from foreign airlines and Airbus for illegally securing favours for them by using his contacts with the then civil aviation minister and senior bureaucrats to pull Air India out of profit earning routes and for placing huge orders for purchase of aircraft from Airbus.
Details with the agency showed that the first such payment was received by a Talwar entity from Emirates in Bank of Singapore on June 3, 2008, for $23 million. Two months later, the same airline transferred another $11 million in Bank of Singapore into the accounts of a “company owned and controlled by Talwar”.
The money trail revealed that the middleman had received alleged payoffs of more than Rs 270 crore, deposited in Bank of Singapore by international airlines besides Rs 88 crore received by his NGO.
The lobbyist has been questioned by the ED multiple times to establish the money trail. It is suspected that Rs 90 crore was withdrawn from bank accounts of Talwar-controlled entities in cash and allegedly distributed to politicians and officials who were responsible for tweaking civil aviation rules to benefit foreign aircraft manufacturers and airlines.
According to sources, the ED has received details of at least $55 million deposited between 2008 and 2012 in Bank of Singapore in the accounts of companies allegedly “owned and controlled” by Talwar. Four major international airlines and Airbus, which had transferred millions of dollars, have already been named by the agency in the remand note moved while seeking Talwar’s custody.
Around the same time, Air Arabia deposited $5.8 million in Bank of Singapore, followed by payments received from Qatar Airways on February 27, 2009, for over 9.6 million and another $1.5 million from Air Asia on June 1, 2009.