Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Nov 9: Even as the BJP and the Congress got involved in a slugfest over a French portal’s disclosure of alleged kickback in the Rafale fighter jets deal, investigations by some Indian media houses revealed that the Indian central agencies were in possession of a horde of documents pointing to illegal gratification but these chose to ignore any investigation into the deal.
The French web portal Mediapart on Monday had revealed that French company Dassault, the maker of the Rafale jets, may have paid crores of rupees to middlemen spanning both the BJP-led NDA 1.0 government and the Congress-led UPA to sign the deal with India. According to Mediapart, Dassault paid almost 13 million euros (nearly ₹ 110 crores at current rates) to a middleman, Sushen Gupta, between 2002-12 to help secure the sale of Rafale fighter jets to India, but Indian agencies failed to investigate these allegations despite having access to incriminating documents on at least some of these payments.
The Indian media houses have found more documents that show that in 2019, three years after India signed the Rafale deal, central agencies, including the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), were alerted of possible kickbacks paid by Dassault, yet they failed to act on the allegations. Such allegations could have led to blacklisting of Dassault and cancellation of the deal under the Indian laws.
The documents form part of the CBI’s charge-sheet on alleged corruption in the sale of 12 AgustaWestland helicopters for top leaders in India. They include a statement by Dheeraj Aggarwal, then manager of IT services company IDS, who in 2019 told the CBI that Dassault routed money to Sushen Gupta’s Mauritius-based shell firm Interstellar through IDS. The arrangement was that 40 per cent of the payment made to IDS by Dassault was to be commission for Sushen Gupta’s Interstellar. IDS had allegedly helped channel ₹ 4.15 crore of Dassault’s money to Interstellar between 2003 and 2006, according to Dheeraj Aggarwal.
The payment period spans the NDA government under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which was in power till 2004, and the UPA, which came to power right afterwards. Despite including this testimony in its court filings, the CBI did not initiate a probe against the company. According to Indian laws, a company can be suspended or banned if it “resorts to corrupt practices,” “unfair means” or “illegal activities” during any period of the bidding and negotiations.
Meanwhile, reacting to Mediapart’s report that commissions were paid between 2007 and 2012 for securing the Rafale deal with India, the BJP on Tuesday said the abbreviation INC (Indian National Congress) should be rechristened as “I Need Commission” and alleged that the failed negotiations for the aircraft took place when the Congress was in power and they failed because of the latter’s dissatisfaction with the ‘cut.’
The BJP spokesman Sambit Patra accused the Congress especially its former president Rahul Gandhi, who has been alleging corruption in the purchase of the fighter aircraft by the Narendra Modi Government, of spreading “canard, lies and disinformation.” Patra also sought Gandhi’s response to the fresh revelations Mediapart.
Mediapart had claimed that bogus invoices were generated to enable Dassault Aviation to pay at least 7.5 million Euros in secret commissions to a middleman to help it secure the Rafale deal with India. According to its investigation, the Dassault Aviation paid the kickbacks to the intermediary in Mauritius between 2007 and 2012 putting it in the time frame when the Congress-led UPA was in power. Patra alleged that it was clearly the dissatisfaction of the Congress and the Gandhi family that was the main reason behind the negotiations falling through during the UPA government.
“The Mediapart story says that ‘corruption, influence-peddling and favouritism’ marked the deal during the UPA government,” he noted. “It will not be an exaggeration to say the INC be renamed as ‘I Need Commission’. Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Robert Vadra , all say that I need commission.”
The UPA Government had a deal within every deal, he said. The Congress had in the past said the allegations of corruption by the BJP against its ruling family and its members were driven by vendetta. Patra also said the alleged middleman Sushen Mohan Gupta, whose name has cropped up in the Rafale case, was also accused of pocketing commission in AgustaWestland VVIP chopper purchase deal. “This is too much of a coincidence, and too much of a coincidence is always a conspiracy,” he said.
The Supreme Court and the CAG have already gone into the contents of the Rafale deal signed by the Modi Government and found nothing wrong in it, Patra pointed out. He said Rahul Gandhi had made the alleged corruption in the purchase a big election issue during the 2019 polls but it failed to make any impact and the BJP returned with even bigger strength.
While the Congress hit back at the BJP wondering why the central agencies chose to ignore investigations into the kickback allegations, Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday asked his party colleagues not to be afraid of fighting against the “corrupt” central government as truth was with them in every step.
Gandhi tweeted in Hindi, “When the truth is with you in every step, then what is there to worry about? My Congress colleagues – keep fighting like this against the corrupt central government. Don’t stop, don’t get tired, don’t be afraid,” Gandhi said.
Publishing “bogus” receipts allegedly raised by firms linked to Gupta, Mediapart had claimed that the office of the Attorney General of Mauritius sent them to the CBI on October 11, 2018 — it also shared an image of the letter from the Mauritius AG’s office to the CBI.
“This was how Indian detectives discovered that Sushen Gupta had also acted as an intermediary for Dassault Aviation over the Rafale deal. His Mauritian company Interstellar Technologies received at least 7.5 million euros from the French aviation firm between 2007 and 2012, thanks to IT contracts that were clearly overbilled, and from which most of the money was discreetly sent to Mauritius using a system of alleged false invoices. Some of these invoices even got the name of the French company wrong, referring instead to ‘Dassult Aviation’,” Mediapart said in its report.
Following Patra’s charges, the Congress hit back at the BJP saying that the government had launched “operation cover up” and demanded to know as to why it had not probed the entire episode so far. The Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said his party had been seeking a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the deal, and asked as to why the government has not agreed to this.
In April this year, Mediapart had claimed that Gupta, charge-sheeted by the Enforcement Directorate in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal case, had supplied classified documents to Dassault Aviation on the activities of the Indian negotiating team. In the past, Dassault Aviation and Ministry of Defence have rejected allegations of any corruption in the Rafale contract. In December 2018, the Supreme Court dismissed a bunch of petitions demanding a court-monitored investigation into the deal. It said there was “no occasion to doubt the (decision-making) process” leading to the award of the contract. In November 2019, it had rejected review petitions in the matter.
