SP Tyagi gets clean-chit from Italian court in chopper-case

But the court found former Finmeccanica Chairman and CEO Giuseppe Orsi and the former CEO of AgustaWestland, Bruno Spagnolini guilty of false invoicing and has sentenced them to two years in prison.

It has also levied a fine of 15,000 Euros each on them.

Both have said they will appeal to a higher court.

But the verdict brings major relief came for SP Tyagi, who has been accused of receiving kickbacks from AugustaWestland to award the contract to them.

The case is still under investigation by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

It is also expected to bring relief to Congress party, which led the previous UPA government that was left deeply embarrassed by the scandal.

After the verdict, Air Chief Marshal Tyagi is reported to have said, "I served the nation for 40 years, this is what I got. I am thankful to God for this start. Finger pointing is not good."

The controversy started when The British unit of the Finmeccanica Group in Italy landed a 3600-crore contracts to sell 12 VVIP helicopters for use by India’s top politicians in 2010.

Corruption allegations were leveled against its British arm AugustaWestland.

In January 2013, India cancelled the deal citing a breach of integrity relating to alleged corruption and the CBI was assigned to investigate whether kickbacks were paid to Indian officials, as alleged in Italian courts.

At the time of cancellation, three helicopters had already been delivered to India against a payment of nearly Rs. 1,100 crore.

The CBI has alleged that the former Air Force chief was instrumental in influencing decisions that changed the tender terms to favour the specification of AgustaWestland's helicopters.

Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi was head of the Air Force from 2004-2007.

It was alleged, Anglo-Italian manufacturer AgustaWestland had paid bribes to have the technical criteria changed so that it could qualify for the contract.

Italian investigators had arrested Finmeccanica CEO Giuseppe Orsi last year for allegedly paying the bribes.

AgustaWestland CEO Bruno Spagnolini was also under arrest.

Following the controversy, two governors - BV Wanchoo and MK Narayanan - had resigned from office after they were interrogated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as witnesses.

Narayanan was National Security Advisor and Wanchoo was head of the Special Protection Group (SPG) which handled the security of top political leaders.