Prime minister Narendra Modi of India boasts his government of being corruption-free. But, his claim has become questionable in the light of the recent audit of Rafale purchase in France.
India had ordered 36 of these fighter aircraft from France in September 2016. The 7.8 billion government-to-government deal for 36 fighter jets was signed in 2016. The Indian Air Force has already raised its first squadron of the Rafale jets at Ambala and is due to raise the second one at Hasimara in West Bengal.
Read more: India receives more French Rafale jets amid China tensions
India expects to receive more than 50 percent of these fighters by April-end. The first batch of five Rafale jets had arrived in India on July 28 and was officially inducted on September 10 by the government.
Dassault’s “gifts to clients”
In a startling disclosure, the French Anti-Corruption Agency, Agence Française Anticorruption has announced that their inspectors have discovered an unexplained irregularity during their scheduled audit of Dassault.
According to details, the manufacturer of French combat jet Rafale agreed to pay one million euros to a middleman in India just after the signing of the Indo-French contract in 2016.
An investigation by the French publication Mediapart has revealed that an amount of 508,925 euro was allegedly paid under “gifts to clients” head in the 2017 accounts of the Dassault group.
Read more: India’s Rafale jet deal faces new controversy
Dassault tried to justify “the larger than usual gift” with a proforma invoice from an Indian company called Defsys Solutions. The invoice suggested that Defsys was paid 50 percent of an order worth 1,017,850 for the manufacturing of 50 dummy models of the Rafale jets.
Each dummy, according to the AFA report, was quoted at a hefty price of 20,357. The Dassault group failed to provide any documentary evidence to audit the existence of those models. Also, it could also not explain why the expenditure was listed as a “gift to clients” in their accounts.
Read more: ‘Bird menace’ threatens security of Rafale aircraft, says Indian air force
Rampant corruption in India
Defsys is one of the subcontractors of Dassault in India. It has been linked with notorious businessman Sushen Gupta who was arrested and later granted bail for his role in another major defense scam in India, the Agusta Westland VVIP Chopper case.
The Enforcement Directorate charged Sushen Gupta for allegedly devising a money-laundering scheme for the payouts during the purchase of the helicopters.
Corruption in defense deals is a norm rather than an exception in India. They did not spare even aluminum caskets used to bring back dead bodies from the Kargil heights (“coffin scam”). Investigations into shady deals linger on until the main characters or middleman is dead. Bofors is a case in point.
Read more: Shocking report accuses Indian billionaire of funding Myanmar military-owned firm
India’s Tehelka Commission of Inquiry headed by Mr. Justice S N Phukan had suggested that a sitting Supreme Court Judge should examine all defense files since independence.
Concerned about rampant corruption in defense purchases allegedly involving India’s Army personnel, he desired that the proposed Supreme Court Judge should be assisted by the Central Vigilance Commission and the Central Bureau of Investigation.
He stressed that unless the existing system of defense procurement was made more transparent through corrective measures, India’s defense deals would continue to face corruption and be murky. He had submitted his report to then prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee but to no avail.
Read more: Mega corruption in Indian defense deals?
The Commission had examined 15 defense deals including the AJT, Sukhoi, Barak missiles, T-90 tanks, tank navigation systems, simulators, hand-held thermal imagers, Karl Gustav rocket, and Kandla-Panipat pipeline. The irregularities in the scrutinized defense deals compelled the Commission to suggest de novo scrutiny of all defense purchases since independence.
Why is there no accountability?
The courts have absolved Rajiv Gandhi of involvement in the BOFORS scam. However, a considerable section of Indian people still believes that ‘Mr. Clean’ was not really so clean. The BJP exploited Rajiv’s acquittal as an election issue.
Kuldip Nayyar, in his article “The gun that misfired,” laments, “There was practically no discussion on Bofors-guns kickbacks in the 13th Lok Sabha which has been dissolved for early elections. Once Rajiv Gandhi died the main target – the non-Congress parties lost interest in the scam”.
Read more: Indian extradited to US from Singapore in call center fraud
According to analysts, the mechanisms of public accountability in India have collapsed. Corruption has become a serious socio-political malady as politicians, bureaucracy and Armed Forces act in tandem to receive kickbacks.
The anti-corruption cases, filed in courts, drag on for years without any results. For example, there was no conviction in the Bofors-gun case (Rs 64 crore), because of a lethargic investigation where the case was filed on January 22, 1990, and charge sheet served on October 22, 1999. Among the accused were Rajiv Gandhi, S K Bhatnagar, W N Chaddha, Octavio, and Ardbo. The key players in the scam died before the court’s decision.
In another example, no recoveries could be made in the HDW submarine case (Rs 32.5 crore). The CBI later recommended closure of this case.
Read more: Elimination of India’s high currency notes curtails corruption
Central Vigilance Commissioner P Shankar had alleged: “The CVC had submitted its defense deals report on March 31, 2001. Yet a year later, the government has not conducted the mandatory departmental inquiry to fix responsibility”.
Shankar explained that the CVC had examined 75 cases apart from specific allegations made by former MP Jayant Malhotra and Rear Admiral Suhas V Purohit Vittal. Malhotra’s allegations were about middlemen in defense deals.
After his report, the ministry lifted the ban on agents in November 2001 to regularise the middlemen. Purohit, in his petition in the Delhi HC on a promotion case, had alleged unnecessary spare parts were bought from a cartel of suppliers instead of manufacturers, at outrageous prices and at times worth more than the original equipment.
Read more: India removes federal investigators over corruption feud
Past cases forgotten?
There were ear-rending shrieks about the Taj-heritage corridor case, Purulia-arms-drop case, and stamp-paper cases. Indian Express dated November 11, 2003, reported that the stamp-paper co-accused assistant Sub-Inspector of Police that he drew salary of Rs 9,000, but his assets valued over Rs 100 crore. He built six plush hotels during his association for 6 years with the main accused Abdul Karim Telgi.
The ASI was arrested on June 13 and charged under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act. Investigations by the Special Investigating Team (SIT) probing the stamp scam had found that the ASI Kamath accepted Rs 72 lakh from the scam kingpin, Abdul Karim Telgi, on behalf of IGP Sridhar Vagal.
Read more: India’s Rolls Royce corruption scandal: Updates
The problem is that the modus operandi of corruption ensures that it is invisible and unaccounted for. There are widespread complaints that the politicians exercise underhand influence on bureaucracy to mint money.
For instance, the Chief Vigilance Commissioner complained to the Indian Prime Minister that at least “six cabinet ministers, handling key infrastructure ministries, are harassing chiefs of public sector undertakings for ‘personal favors’, and in some cases even for “pay-offs”.
For example, one PSU (Public Sector Undertaking) chief is said to have complained that he was asked to get Rs 20 crore delivered to his minister’s party office, and when he refused, he was “denied” an extension.
Read more: Modi 2.0 and India’s regressive reverse metamorphosis
Indian Express dated February 19, 2004, reported, under reportage titled “Figuring India” that ‘Rajiv Pratap Rudy is only one in a long line of ministers who have misused the funds and facilities of Public Sector Undertakings”.
The newspaper appended the following bird’s-eye view of the funds (available for corruption) at the PSUs command: “Rs 3, 24,632 crores total investment in PSUs, Rs 36,432 crore profits, 12,714 crore profits of monopolies in petroleum, Rs 5,613 CRORE profits of monopolies in power Rs 7,612 crore, profits of monopolies in telecom Rs 10,388 crore, Rs 61,000 crore invested in PSUs in 1991-1998, Rs 19,000 crore returns during 1991-1998.”
“Corruption is cancer”
Professor Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari claim in their book Corruption in India: The DNA and RNA that public officials in India may be cornering as much as ₹921 billion (US$13 billion), or 5 percent of the GDP through corruption.
India’s ranking on the Corruption Perception Index– 2020 is 86. The index released annually by Transparency International ranks 180 countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and business people. It uses a scale of zero to 100, where zero signifies the highest level of corruption and 100 is very clean.
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In India, anti-corruption focuses on big-ticket graft. But it is petty corruption that hurts common people more. Both need to be weeded out. A former World Bank president Robert Zoellick once said, “Corruption is cancer that steals from the poor, eats away at governance and moral fiber, and destroys trust.”
According to Transparency International, CPI-2020 shows that corruption is more pervasive in countries least equipped to handle Covid-19 and other crises.
“Covid-19 is not just a health and economic crisis. It is a corruption crisis. And one that we are currently failing to manage,” Delia Ferreira Rubio, chair of Transparency International said.
Read more: India is the most corrupt country in Asia, Transparency International
“The past year has tested governments like no other in memory, and those with higher levels of corruption have been less able to meet the challenge. But even those at the top of the CPI must urgently address their role in perpetuating corruption,” she further added.
Click Wikipedia to know that Narendra Modi’s “Net worth” is “₹ 2.85 Crore” (June 2020). This figure defies his humble financial background. He has a penchant for hobnobbing with “crony capitalism”. It appears he is worth a lot more. Those who make illicit money have a knack for hiding it.
Read more: Farmers’ protest: Is crony capitalism crux of the problem?
Mr. Amjed Jaaved has been writing free-lance for over five decades. He has served federal and provincial governments of Pakistan for 39 years. His contributions stand published in the leading dailies and magazines at home and abroad (Nepal. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka et. al.). He is author of eight e-books including The Myth of Accession. The views expressed in the article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Global Village Space.