REPLY TO THE ALLEGATIONS MADE AGAINST SHRI. PRANAB

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disclosing that these very allegations are the subject matter of a PIL before the High Court of Delhi after it was withdrawn in the Supreme Court of India on 21 April 2006, the first day of the hearing.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 15^th 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 10^th 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.