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A bench of Justice Rekha Palli of the Delhi High Court today allowed Shivani Saxena, an accused in the 9 year-old ₹3,600 crore AgustaWestland VVIP Chopper scam to travel to Dubai for a booster dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

The bench granted Saxena 8 weeks' time to travel to Dubai to get the booster dose, in view of the rise in cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19.

While Sr. Adv. RK Handoo argued that his client was an old lady with co-morbidities because of which it was important for her to get the booster dose, Adv. Zoheb Hussain for the Enforcement Directorate (ED) told Court that this was merely a concocted story.

Earlier, Christian Michel, an alleged middleman in the scam, had informed the Delhi High Court that his extradition from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to India was merely a quid pro quo for Indian authorities sending Princess Latifa back to Dubai as he was brought to India in December 2018, just 8 months after Princess Sheikha Latifa bin Mohammed al-Maktoum, the runaway daughter of Dubai’s ruler, was intercepted by the Indian Coast Guard near Goa while trying to flee to the United States. 

Nearly 8 years and dozen chargesheets after a probe was ordered into the alleged irregularities in the VVIP chopper deal, the trial in the infamous AgustaWestland scandal is yet to commence.

Cause Title: Shivani Saxena vs Enforcement Directorate