Congress rakes up Rafale deal once again amid fresh bribery allegations, demands probe

Congress on Monday renewed its attack on the Modi government over alleged irregularities in the Rafale deal after a French media outlet claimed that aircraft makers paid one million euros to alleged middlemen after finalising the fighter jet deal with India.

Citing the media report, Congress stepped up attack on the Modi government claiming that the existence of middlemen in the fighter jet purchase was a violation of the Defence Procurement Procedure that made it clear that no payment of commissions would be made in purchase of defence equipment.

“Was the payment of 1.1 million euros shown by Dassault as ‘Gifts to Clients’ in reality a commission paid to middleman of the Rafale deal,” Randeep Singh Surjewala, chief spokesperson of the Congress, told reporters here.

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He called for a fresh investigation into the claims of payment of commission and bribery in the Rafale deal.

According to the report by mediapart.fr, French anti-corruption agency – Agence Francaise Anticorruption (AFA) had raised questions about the expenditure of 5,08,925 Euros made by Dassault Aviation under the heading ‘gifts to clients’.

According to the report, Dassault had furnished an invoice dated March 30, 2017 by an Indian company Defsys Solutions as justification for the “gift”.

“This invoice, which related to 50% of the total order (1,017,850 euros), was for the manufacture of 50 models of the Rafale C, with a price per unit of 20,357 euros,” the report added, quoting the AFA report.

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“Dassault told the French anti-corruption agency that it paid an Indian firm that was engaged to prepare 59 models of Rafale. No answers were forthcoming when the French officials asked Dassault why it would engage an Indian firm to make models when it was manufacturing the jet itself,” Surjewala said.

He pointed out that Defsys Solutions-India was actually a company undertaking assembly of flight simulators and optical and electronic systems and sought to know whether the Prime Minister would now invoke the integrity clause of the DPP to black list Dassault.

Surjewala claimed that the “evidence” of a middleman in the Rafale purchase had vitiated the deal and demanded a complete investigation into the case.

“How can a ‘middleman’ and ‘payment of commission’ be permitted in a ‘government-to-government defence contract’ or in any Defence procurement in India in violation of the mandatory defence procurement procedure,” Surjewala said.

The Congress also pointed out that the then Defence Minister A K Antony had scrapped the AgustaWestland helicopter contract and black-listed the company from participating in Indian defence market.