India has put on hold all defence procurements from the Italian company Finmeccannica and its affiliate firms in the wake of an alleged chopper scam.

In separate circulars, the Department of Defence and the Department of Defence Production have said that all procurements/acquisition cases in the npipeline with the Finmeccannica group of companies including its subsidiaries and affiliates should be put on hold.

The circulars said, there should be strict compliance of its orders by all the three services and Public Sector Units, Ordnance Factory Board and other concerned departments.

Finmeccannicca is the parent firm of AgustaWestland, which was accused of paying kickbacks to the tune of over 360 crore rupees in the 3,600 crore rupee deal to supply 12 VVIP choppers to the Air Force and the deal has since been scrapped.

The Ministry has also asked the departments under it to stop any kind of dealings with the firms named in the VVIP chopper scam FIR including AgustaWestland, IDS Tunisia, IDS Mauritius, IDS Infotech, Mohali and Aeromatrix Solution Limited, Chandigarh.

After the chopper scam broke out, the government had decided to go slow on defence deals with the Finmeccannica group but this is the first time it has issued orders to put the deals with the group on hold.The two circulars, issued within months after the Modi government took over, may also hit the Navy's requirements for radars as the Finmeccannica group company Selex is involved in programmes such as the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier with its radars.