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The Opposition Congress brought the issue of Rafale scam before the Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC), KV Chowdary, here on Monday. A delegation of the party, consisting of senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ahmed Patel, Jairam Ramesh and Kapil Sibal, has requested the CVC to examine the deal. The party has also produced about 20 documents to supplement its arguments that high-level corruption is involved in the deal.
Allegations
In a memorandum submitted to the CVC, the principal Opposition party claimed that the deal resulted in a huge loss to the public exchequer. The leaders said the Rafale scam endangered national security and alleged conspiracy behind behind by-passing public sector undertaking Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to favour private entity Reliance Defence by violating the mandatory provisions of the ‘Defence Procurement Procedure’.
“As per law, the Government is bound to provide complete information to the CVC. Entire deal, its contours, nature of the contract, an absence of favouritism, corruption, crony capitalism, violation of law and procedure and the principles of level playing field are part of CVC’s domain to examine. The Government is bound to disclose the price of 36 aircraft to the CVC,” the memorandum said.
“We, therefore, request the CVC to undertake its statutory duty by examining the record threadbare, so that corruption, crony capitalism, violation of law and procedure and loss to the public exchequer is brought forth at the earliest,” it added.
‘Biggest defence scam’
The party said that the Rafale deal has emerged as ‘India’s biggest Defence scam’. “Tracks of corruption are being unravelled by repeated disclosures awaiting a response from the Defence Ministry. The stench of corruption and crony capitalism from the Rafale deal is nauseating, and requires an urgent intervention by your good self,” the leaders said in the memorandum.
According to the party, the loss to the exchequer is of ₹41,205 crore. “Deliberate loss caused as also denial of a contract worth over ₹30,000 crore to HAL is writ large.
“Deliberate enrichment of a private entity — ‘Reliance Defence’ — at the cost of HAL, by awarding ₹30,000-crore ‘offset contract’, as also a ₹1,00,000-crore ‘life cycle contract’ without any tender and adherence to mandatory ‘Defence Procurement Procedure’ itself tells a story of stark ‘crony capitalism’ that requires investigation,” the Congress said.
Negotiations had been on between the Defence Ministry, Dassault Aviation, and HAL for the purchase of 126 Rafale aircraft. Of this, 108 jets were to be manufactured by HAL. It said that mandatory approval of the Cabinet Committee on Security was not taken before the purchase of 36 Rafale aircraft was announced on April 10, 2015.
The party also mentioned former HAL chief TS Raju’s claims of the undertaking having signed a work-share contract with Dassault and endorsed his demand for making the files of the agreement public.
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