For suspected wrongdoing in the purchase of Hawk-115 Advance Jet Trainer aircraft, the CBI has filed an FIR against British aerospace giant Rolls Royce PLC, its former India director Tim Jones, and arms dealer Sudhir Choudhrie. British Aerospace Systems and Choudhrie's son Bhanu were also charged in the FIR.
In addition, the FIR asserted that 100 million pounds were transferred by Russian armaments firms into a Swiss bank account (No. 120467) in the name of Portsmouth, a business connected to Choudhrie for defence agreements involving the acquisition of MiG fighter aircraft.
The CBI registered the case after a preliminary inquiry, launched in 2016, found that Choudhrie and others had entered into a criminal conspiracy with public servants who allegedly abused their official positions to increase the number of Hawk aircraft to be procured from British Aerospace Systems and get the manufacturer licence fee raised from 4 million pounds to 7. 5 million pounds by paying huge kickbacks to intermediaries.
The wrong doing happened despite the fact that the agreement included an integrity pact which prohibited payments to intermediaries and middlemen.
The FIR also made the sensational allegation that corruption in the procurement of aircraft would have come to light in 2006 or 2007, but for the accused's successful efforts to have the documents destroyed after the income tax department stumbled upon key records indicating fraud in the deal while conducting research on Rolls Royce India Pvt Ltd. The CBI’s preliminary inquiry found that in a meeting on September 3, 2003, the Cabinet Committee on Security had approved procurement of 66 Hawk-115 aircraft and signing of an inter-government agreement between the governments of India and the UK for long-term product support.