REPLY TO THE ALLEGATIONS MADE AGAINST SHRI. PRANAB
REPLY TO THE
ALLEGATIONS MADE AGAINST SHRI. PRANAB MUKHERJEE, UNION FINANCE MINISTER, BY
INDIA AGAINST CORRUPTION IN THEIR LETTER DATED 26.5.12 ADDRESSED TO THE PRIME
MINSTER CONTAINING ALLEGATIONS AGAINST 15 MINISTERS OF THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
It
is unfortunate that India Against Corruption that claims to represent the high
standards of ethical behaviour has thrown its professed moral ground to winds and
sent to the Prime Minister allegations against the Finance Minister, Shri.
Pranab Mukherjee, without disclosing that these very allegations are the
subject matter of a PIL before the High Court of Delhi after it was withdrawn
in the Supreme Court of India on 21 April 2006, the first day of the hearing.
What compounds the unethicality is that the team has called for an
investigation into the allegations that is the main prayer in the PIL, without
referring to the various orders passed by the High Court.
2.
Shri. Prashant Bhushan has
been the advocate in the PIL ever since it was filed in the Supreme Court in
2006. He is now seeking to agitate in a non-judicial
forum what he has been unable to achieve through a constitutional process.
3.
The complaint which has
now been sent to the Prime Minster does not disclose either that he (Shri Bhushan)
who is also a prominent member of India Against Corruption, is the advocate in
the PIL in the High Court or that the matter is sub judice on the same issues before the High Court.
4.
He has concealed the
fact that the Government of India has through its counter affidavit filed in
the PIL not only questioned the motives of the petitioners in filing the
petition, but also pointed out the blatant inaccuracies and false surmises in
the two stories that appeared in the Outlook magazine in its editions of 20
February 2006 and 27 February 2006 on certain leakage of information from
the Naval War Room on which the Petitioners have almost exclusively relied on.
5.
The news stories also
falsely linked the war room with the acquisition of Scorpene submarines. The
petitioners are also aware that as soon as the first article was published, the
Ministry of Defence addressed a letter dated 14 February 2006 to the
Editor-in-Chief and the Senior Editor of Outlook Magazine pointing out the
factual errors and in particular, to the erroneous conclusions drawn therefrom,
in the said article. For reasons best known to them, ‘Outlook’ never published
the letter/clarifications. The petitioners have nevertheless made these
articles the basis of their PIL even though several news items were published
in leading dailies casting doubts on the credibility of the material published
in the Outlook magazine.
5. The
Government has clearly stated in its counter affidavit that the stories in the
Outlook had based its conclusions on non-existent file notings and documents. The
following facts of the case demonstrate the falsity of the allegations:
a) An
enquiry held in May 2005 at the Air HQ
based on the pen drive recovered from Lt. (Retd.) Kulbhushan Parashar
culminated in a full investigation, which pointed towards involvement of some
persons in leakage of information of commercial value. This inquiry did not reveal any linkage whatsoever
with the Scorpene submarine project. As
far as the leakage of information was concerned, the law took its course, FIR
was lodged, charge sheet submitted and the trial is pending in the court of
ACMM.
b) It
was established that the alleged e-mails and other communication of Mr.
Jean-Paul Perrier with Mr. Abhishek Verma and the faxes from the former’s
company Thales were found to be fabricated and false. The French Company had
denied the allegations of employing any middlemen and had, in fact initiated
legal action against the magazine Outlook.
The French Embassy also termed the said article as scandalous. In
addition, the Chairman and CEO of Thales addressed a letter to the Chief of
Naval Staff on 14 February 2006 stating interalia that “Thales formally denies
the magazine’s allegations about the group.”
c) There
was no material before the Government as alleged that Mr. Abhishek Verma’s
uncle had written to RM. No such noting
existed in the records, especially in the Ministry of Defence.
d) The PIL stated that the project was approved despite
serious objections and claimed that a letter bearing 05/01/2005-ECV dated 13
May 2005 was sent by the Finance Minister to the Raksha Mantri expressing
worries on the escalated price of the project. However, no such letter was
written. However, a
letter bearing number 05/01/2005-EEC-V dated 13 May 2005 was
received. This letter, however, refers
to deliberations held in the 15th session of the Indo-German Joint
Commission on Industrial and Economic Cooperation meeting held in April 2005
during which the representatives of a German company had mentioned the pending
litigation relating to the HDW submarine and their request for an early
resolution of the same.
e) The
PIL also pointed to the link between the war room and Scorpene project and
alleged that a ‘TOP SECRET’ Power Point presentation on the submarine
acquisition project was leaked from war-room. However the slides reproduced in
the magazine were never the subject of any of the presentations before the Navy
HQ. The CBI had even concluded that one
of the visuals shown in the Outlook article which was claimed to be a snap shot
of the Scorpene related matter, was found to be a creation of the visual teams
of the magazine.
f) The
intention of publishing such false material was nothing but to mislead the
readers and connect the Scorpene project with the War Room Leakage. Naval HQ never made any presentation of the
alleged kind to the Ministry of Defence to seek permission for some officers to
visit Chile or France to see the Scorpene delivery to the Chilean Navy.
g) Since
May 2004 the Scorpene Programme was dealt with by Projects 75 Cell and not by the
Directorate of Submarine Acquisitions exposing the falsity of their contentions.
The enquiry conducted by the Navy also revealed that there was no connection
between the War Room Leak and the Scorpene project.
h) There
are several other material inaccuracies and falsities in the stories published
in the magazine. Outlook alleged that the contracts were of the value of
Rs.16,000 crore. Value of the two contracts with the two French Firms was only
to the extent of Rs.7,197/- crore. The statement of the Finance Minister in the
Rajya Sabha was twisted to suit their convenience.
6.
As stated above, based
on the articles published in the Outlook magazine, the Centre for Public
Interest Litigation (CPIL) through Mr. Prashant Bhushan, Advocate, who is a
part of it as well as a prominent member of India Against Corruption, filed a
petition allegedly a public interest one, before the Hon’ble Supreme Court
praying for a CBI enquiry into the Scorpene Project and on April 10, 2006 the same was got
dismissed by the petitioners themselves on the submission that they would like
to approach the Hon’ble High Court. They approached the Hon’ble High Court with
the same substance and pleas, on April 21, 2006.
7.
The Hon’ble High Court
passed a detailed order on December 20, 2007, wherein a CBI inquiry was
directed. At that time, Shri Prashant
Bhushan handed over a list containing seven specific aspects which according to
him, should be adverted to, while concluding the inquiry and drawing up the
report. The CBI submitted a report in
April 2008 after detailed investigation and concluded that the allegations
regarding irregularities including the seven aspects referred to above, in
processing the Scorpene deal, are not established.
8.
At the initial stage of
the PIL, the petitioners in the writ petitions said that the IB had the
requisite information. The same was denied by the IB. When the above mentioned petition was about
to be disposed of, an additional affidavit was filed on behalf of the
petitioners in the writ petition stating that they wish to place on record CAG
Report of accounts and financial transactions relating to the Indian Air Force,
Indian Navy, Indian Coasts Guard and other defence services for the year ended
2008 and the said report had also examined the Scorpene deal. The CAG report in
no way indicted the Government or any individual of any mala fide and only referred to some systematic deficiencies. As required, the CAG Report was placed before
the Parliament, which then referred the matter to its Public Accounts Committee
(PAC). The PAC in its 10th
Report (2009-10) dealt with the matter and requested the Government to provide
an Action Taken Report, vide their letter of March 15, 2010. On October 10,
2011, the Indian Audit and Accounts Department accepted the final version of
the Action Taken Report of the Ministry of Defence.
9. Importantly,
it must be pointed out that India Against Corruption has alleged at page-4 of
their communication to the PM that the involvement of Shri. Pranab Mukherjee is
interalia “apparent” in the “Scorpene scam” as he “allowed Abhishek Verma to
operate as a middle man” in the Scorpene Project, “questions arose about the
action being taken against the civilians” and he(Shri Pranab Mukherjee) “sought
to downplay by falsely stating the leaked information was of commercial value”,
that he “did not order any investigation in the Scorpene deal despite the
Outlook Magazine’s detailed expose.” The
action taken by the Ministry of Defence as soon as the issue of the War Room
Leak case came to light would establish that the above allegations are
blatantly false, malicious and have been made with ulterior motives as would be
evident from the following:
a. As
soon as the information of the War Room leak was received, the Air Force and Navy
conducted Court of Inquiry and Board of Inquiry. On the basis of the Inquiry,
one Air Force officer and three Naval Officers were dismissed from service.
b. The
matter was referred to CBI through a letter from the concerned Additional
Secretary in the Ministry of Defence to the Additional Secretary in the
Department of Personnel and Training with a copy to the CBI Director in
February 2006. This was when Shri. Pranab Mukherjee was the RM. On the basis of
this reference, CBI conducted investigation and arrested Kulbushan Prashar,
Vijendra Rana, VK Jha and SL Surve in connection with the War Room leak. Soon
thereafter, Abhishek Verma was also arrested and charge sheeted. In fact
Abhishek Verma was in Jail for more than two years.
c. It
is on the basis of the reference of the case by the Ministry of Defence to CBI that
it was able to file the charge sheet against those accused, including Abhishek
Verma and the case is pending trial in the court of ACCM.
d. Regarding
the issue of enquiry into the Scorpene project, “despite the Outlook Magazine’s
detailed expose,” it has to be stated that the Magazine had alleged the
involvement of middlemen in the Scorpene project inextricably linking it with
the War Room Leak. However, all inquires and investigations were unable to find
evidence linking the two. This was independently concluded by the Naval Board
of Inquiry and the CBI which had filed its report on this issue before the High
Court. The same conclusion was also reached by the IB. In fact, Shri. Bushan,
the lawyer in the PIL, was given an opportunity by the High Court to frame the
specific issues which he wanted the CBI to look into. This was done and yet
there was no evidence that the CBI was able to find despite its investigations,
including those made overseas and enquiries through Interpol etc.
e. As
no evidence was found, CBI made direct enquires with the Outlook Correspondent who
had authored the articles in the Outlook and the Ministry of Defence. The
correspondent could not provide any tangible evidence and even the e-mails
referred in the articles as well as in the complaint/PIL were not available
with him. He on the other hand claimed that he was only having MS Word format
of these mails.
10. The
present communication from Shri Hazare and his group suffers from serious
suppression of facts. It does neither
refer to nor speak of pending litigations. This suppression itself shows the
total falsity of the issues raised.
11. The
facts narrated above clearly established that all necessary inquiries were made
in the War Room leak case and establishes the following:
a. The timely action taken by the Ministry of
Defence resulted in the dismissal of Air Force and Naval officers involved in
the War Room Leak.
b. The
reference made by the Ministry of Defence to the Department of Personnel and
Training and to the CBI resulted in the detailed investigation that was
conducted by the Bureau. It resulted in the jailing of the civilians involved
in the War Room leak case including Abhishek Verma who got bail only after two years in prison.
c. The
CBI investigation has led to the filing of charge sheet against the accused
including Abhishek Verma and the case is now on trial in the court of ACCM.
d. The
Court of Inquiry conducted by the Navy found no links between the War Room leak
case and the Scorpene Project.
e. The
investigation by CBI including those undertaken overseas into the War Room leak
also revealed no link between the two and revealed that there was no middlemen
in the Scorpene project. Even CBI’s enquiry into all the aspects that Shri.
Bushan wanted the Bureau to investigate also revealed nothing that vitiated the
acquisition. The IB had also reached the same conclusion.
f.
The CBI had even
approached the correspondent of Outlook Magazine who had authored the two
articles for evidence and he could not produce anything tangible.
g. The
material allegations made by Outlook magazine were found to be based on non-existent
facts, documents and even fabricated documents.
h. There
was neither any evidence whatsoever of any middlemen in the Scorpene project
nor any evidence of a link between the War Room Leak and the project to warrant
any further enquiry into the acquisition that could have only delayed the
induction of critical equipment by the Navy which was already facing crippling
shortage of submarines.
12. In
the circumstances, it is submitted that the allegations are false, unfair, self-seeking,
motivated, malafide and made with ulterior motive and lacking any form of
responsibility.
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