After an Italian court found no 'conclusive evidence' for the alleged kickbacks paid to Indian authorities in the VVIP chopper deal case, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte landed in New Delhi on Tuesday morning to renew the defence cooperation between the two nations.
Conte held a bilateral talk with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the national capital and discussed a range of issues of mutual interest. The two leaders discussed the issue of defence cooperation under the established framework of a Joint Defence Committee which was set up last year during Modi's visit to Milan.
The agenda of the Joint Defence Committee was to enhance and encourage a “structured dialogue” between Indian and Italian defence firms.
The Italian prime minister, who is on a day-long official visit to India, is accompanied by a high-level delegation.
Sources claimed that since last year, the defence ministries of both countries have been increasingly engaging with themselves to further enhance the defence cooperation. With its expertise in defence sector, several Italian firms have expressed their interest to join Modi's Make in India programme.
After the bilateral talks on Tuesday, both Modi and Conte attended the India-Italy Technology Summit organised by the Department of Science and Technology in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry. The objective of the summit is to facilitate technology transfers, joint ventures, research and development, and market access between industry and research institutions in India and Italy.
Early this year, an Italian court had acquitted former Finmeccanica president Giuseppe Orsi and AgustaWestland CEO Bruno Spagnolini in a case related to the alleged illegal payment of 560 million Euros in the deal to sell 12 AW101 helicopters to Indian Air Force (IAF). In September, the court, in its 322-page judgment, stated that the "there is, conclusively, no evidence of the corrective agreement stipulated according to the imputation, with the foreign public official, just as it requires the incriminating law.” The court also said that as per the evidence submitted the allegation that the operational ceiling limit for flying the helicopter was changed on illegal payment to the then IAF chief was not chronologically possible.
In India, the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate are probing the case in which former IAF chief S.P. Tyagi is an accused along with other private individuals.
