Defence minister tells Parliament army chief did not want to pursue action against the man who offered him bribe.
The traditionally sound relationship between the army chief and the civilian authority as represented by defence minister AK Antony has touched a new low.
After the unseemly row over the General’s date of birth, there is now the unfolding saga of corruption charges leveled by the army chief who is set to retire in a few weeks.
Responding to the bribery charge leveled by Gen VK Singh, Antony on Tuesday deftly shifted the blame for inaction on the army chief himself. “I asked him to give me a written complaint, but he said that he did not want to pursue the matter,” Antony said during a brief intervention in the Rajya Sabha.
He, however, corroborated the army chief’s allegation that a retired General, Tejinder Singh, had offered him a bribe for clearing a contract for purchase of substandard trucks. Striking his forehead in a gesture of desperation, Antony had told Gen Singh that this was a serious matter and he should file a complaint. But the minister did not have any answer as to why he did not take any action on Gen Singh’s oral complaint.
Meanwhile, the CBI has written to the ministry of defence about the allegations leveled by Gen VK Singh. The federal investigation agency said it is yet to initiate its probe as it has not received any formal complaint from Gen Singh.
Asserting that as defence minister he had made it a practice to forward even anonymous complaints to the ministry, Antony said he has been very strict on the issue of corruption. “I will cancel any contract if there is anything wrong,” he stressed.
Even in this case, he laboured the point that he had done his best.
“If I am wrong, punish me,” he told the House. For a government that has been slammed regularly by the opposition on the issue of corruption, Antony appeared to be an honourable exception. His honesty and integrity was applauded by all sections of the House.
However, leader of opposition Arun Jaitley struck a note of caution and said, “If a subject matter comes to the knowledge of the army chief and the minister that somebody — maybe a serving General — is doing this, is this an issue on which both of them should have put blinkers on their eyes, not recorded it, not inquire into it at all, and allowed that General to complete his term?”
Jaitley said that the tendency to create a controversy over every defence deal is hurting the nation’s defence preparedness.
“Therefore, you need to have a judicious balance to be struck that whereas we must stand by probity, at the same time, we cannot leave India insecure if we get over-obsessed with that issue,” he said.
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