The CBI has approached the Israel government for its help in recording statements of some people in that country.
Three years after initiating a probe into the alleged irregularities during the purchase of Barak missiles in a Rs 1,150-crore deal, the CBI has approached the Israel government for its help in recording statements of some people besides getting details of some bank transactions in that country.
A Letters Rogatory was issued from a designated court here for Israeli government to seek its assistance in investigations into the case, official sources said.
The CBI had moved the court for issuing the Letters Rogatory as the agency alleged that part of offence was committed in Israel as the "commission was paid by the seller in violation of the contract entered with the Government".
The agency said documents were to be collected from Israel and certain statements were to be recorded in order to trace the chain of money, they said.
The CBI had registered a case in this connection and named then defence minister George Fernandes, former naval chief Sushil Kumar, president of now defunct Samata Party Jaya Jaitley, arms dealer Suresh Nanda and others in October 2006.
It had questioned Fernandes, admiral (retd) Kumar, Jaya Jaitley, Nanda and former Upsc chairman Subir Datta as part of the probe.
The CBI claimed in its FIR that the contract price for purchasing seven Barak missile was about USD 17 million which was higher than the price offered by Israel in early 1996.
"Fernandes wanted the proposal to be initiated from below and he eventually overruled the learned opinion of then Scientific Advisor to Raksha Mantri (Defence Minister) in order to favour Israel Aircraft Industries and others," the CBI had alleged in its FIR.
Former president APJ Abdul Kalam, who was then scientific advisor, had "strongly opposed" the proposal made in 1999 by admiral Kumar to import two surface-to-air missiles but Fernandes "overruled" this view and gave the go-ahead, it charged.
"The then Raksha Mantri (Fernandes) overruled the opinion of then scientific advisor to defence minister... against import of any missile system and gave a go-ahead to the proposal of Sushil Kumar on June 28, 1999," the CBI alleged.
The Defence Ministry had put up a note for CCS which returned the proposal of acquiring some precision-guided missiles as it had decided to defer import so that it could be considered by the next government.
"Despite this note by the defence secretary, Fernandes wrote back on September three, 1999, that installation of Barak...systems on INS fleet was absolutely essential and therefore, the CCS might be apprised of the urgency of requirement and to seek its approval," the FIR said.
The case came to light in 2001 when a sting operation was carried out by the news portal Tehelka that exposed alleged irregularities in several defence deals, including the one to purchase the Barak systems.
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