'Over the past two years, army officers have been presenting a rosy picture of readiness, while responding to pointed questions from the MPs during their presentations before the committee,' said Satyapal Maharaj.
As the parliamentary panel overseeing working of the defence ministry said it plans to summon army chief Gen VK Singh for flagging the country’s lack of defence preparedness, the government began a fire fighting exercise to limit the probe, making the case to shield the Congress Party’s first family from any adverse result if the CBI tries to go into the root of the deal.
“Over the past two years, army officers have been presenting a rosy picture of readiness, while responding to pointed questions from the MPs during their presentations before the committee,” said Satyapal Maharaj, who heads the parliamentary standing committee on defence.
Asked if army officers will be held guilty under the clause of parliamentary privilege as they had withheld information, Maharaj said the issue will be flagged at the next meeting of the panel.
“His deputy (vice chief of army staff) has been telling us that the army was satisfied with the preparedness and acquisitions. But the army chief’s letter to the PM tells a different story. So we will discuss the issue and may call him to explain the variance of their stand,” he added.
Meanwhile, the government seems to be trying to limit the probe to just the army’s chief’s allegations of bribe rather than go deep into the Tatra trucks deal signed in 1986 during the prime ministership of Rajiv Gandhi. Government sources say, the probe will cover the General’s allegations pertaining to clearing “substandard” trucks bought at “exorbitant price” from Sipox, making a differentiation from Omnipol, the original Czech company that had signed the deal.
They further said digging the deal from 1986 and examining trial reports would only delay the probe.
In reality, Ravi Rishi had bought Omnipol from the Czech and had rechristened it as ‘Tatra A.S’. Sipox is actually ‘Tatra Sipox UK’, the trading arm of Tatra A.S. The first agreement was signed in 1986 with Omnipol but BEML started buying the same trucks from Tatra Sipox UK since 1992 and hence a controversy was raised over the purchases made from the London-based trading company while the defence procurement rules mandate purchase only from the manufacturer.
The issue was raised even at that time but it was settled after Rishi explained that the UK firm was just the trading company as a subsidiary of his Tatra A.S., though at that time it was registered only to provide spiritual, religious, and social services.
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