In the twenty year old Augusta Westland bribery case, the special CBI bench awarded 4 year jail term and one lakh rupees fine to the three accused, including former Samta Party president Jaya Jaitley.
Jaya Jaitley, her former colleague Gopal Pacherwak and Major General (retired) S.P Murgai found guilty of corruption and criminal conspiracy. The proceeding of the case was held on camera.
The court observed that the three accused, along with Surender Kumar Surekha who later turned an approver, were a party to the criminal conspiracy.
The CBI court held that,”from the evidence lead by the prosecution it is proved beyond doubt that in the meeting in the hotel room on December 25, 2000, Surekha and Murgai assured their assistance to Samuel in procuring letter of evaluation for the product of his company from the Ministry of Defence and also to arrange a meeting between him and accused Jaya Jaitly who would provide political cover to them in this regard.”
Operation Westend
A news portal tehelka.com aired a sting operation, ”Operation Westend” in January 2001. The sting showed the accused purportedly accepting a bribe from reporters of the portal, who posed as representatives of a fictitious company, for supply orders for hand-held thermal imagers from the Indian Army.
The meetings took place in the official residence of the then defence minister George Fernandes under the BJP-led NDA government. The sting caused a massive uproar and Fernandes was forced to resign from his post. Though later his name was cleared by the Phukan Committee.
The chargesheet against Jaya Jaitley and other two was filed in 2006 and the charges were framed in 2012.
Eduindex News 