Rafale: Who’s afraid of a probe?

New revelations necessitate probe into the deal

Revelations made recently by French news portal Mediapart that commissions were paid by Dassault Aviation in the Rafale aircraft deal with India has revived the controversies and charges surrounding the defence deal. The Modi government ordered 36 fighter jets from Dassault in 2016 after suddenly scrapping the negotiation process for 126 fighters that had started under the UPA government and was close to the finish line. Mediapart has now reported that a commission of over 7 million Euros was paid by Dassault to a defence middleman, Sushen Gupta, between 2007-12. It has supported its charge with purported details of the payments, including fake invoices and names. It has also revealed that Sushen Gupta was privy to the negotiations between the Indian and French governments and had provided Dassault classified documents relating to the Modi government’s Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) with the French government.

A war of words and exchange of charges has broken out between the Opposition, mainly the Congress, and the government over the fresh revelations. The Congress party, especially its leader Rahul Gandhi, had accused the government and particularly Narendra Modi, of corruption and cover-up in the deal. The CAG had examined the deal partly and the report was tabled in Parliament in February 2019. The Supreme Court had rejected in December 2018 petitions for a probe into the deal. Neither the CAG report nor the court’s ruling removed all the doubts about the the deal. The CAG report had pointed out violations of defence procurement rules that had favoured Dassault. The Supreme Court ruling could also not be taken as the grant of a clean chit to the Modi government though it was claimed to be so.

Several questions relating to the inflation of the price of the aircraft, removal of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) as the Indian production partner for it and the grant of offset contract to a company owned by Anil Ambani, the removal of anti-corruption and penalty clauses, the dropping of the provision for transfer of technology from the agreement and certain other matters have not been satisfactorily answered. The latest revelation that the CBI knew of the payment of commission in 2018 and did not act on it raises more questions, especially when seen in the light of the midnight removal of the then CBI Director Alok Verma. A credible probe either by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) or a court-monitored independent probe is needed to bring out the truth. This is not a matter between the government and the Opposition or between the BJP and the opposition parties. A judicial probe into the Rafale affair is going on in France. Who is afraid of it in India?