Scams that rocked defence ministry since 2007
Monday March 26, 2012 06:35:24 PM,
IANS
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New Delhi: Army
chief General V.K. Singh Monday dropped a bombshell by revealing
that a retired lieutenant general had offered him a bribe of Rs.14
crore (Rs.140 million) for approving the supply of 600
sub-standard vehicles to the army.
He also made it clear that he had brought the matter to the notice
of Defence Minister A.K. Antony soon after the offer was made to
him.
With Antony now ordering a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)
investigation into Gen. Singh's allegation, here is a low-down on
some of the scams that rocked the defence ministry since 2007 and
the outcome of the investigations.
Adarsh Housing Society scam
The case involves top armed forces officers and defence estate
officers issuing a no-objection certificate to Adarsh Housing
Society, comprising retired and serving personnel, to build a
31-storey housing complex with 104 flats. The building came up on
a 6,450 square metre plot of land inside a high security naval
campus in upscale Colaba area of Mumbai.
Originally proposed as a housing scheme for widows of Kargil
martyrs, it later came to light that politicians, bureaucrats and
senior defence officers including three former army and navy
chiefs had got flats allotted to them by misusing their official
positions.
It also came to light that several norms relating defence land had
been violated including issuing of no-objection certificates to
enable the construction of the housing society.
The scam hit headlines in 2009 and later, the probe was handed
over to the CBI, which has last week arrested several former armed
forces officers including a retired major general and a brigadier
.
Among those named as part of the beneficiaries of the housing
society were former army chiefs Gen. Deepak Kapoor and Gen. N.C.
Vij, and former navy chief Admiral Madhavendra Singh. The three
officers, after their names became public as Adarsh beneficiaries,
returned the flats.
Sukna land scam
Two senior lieutenant generals and a major general were named in
converting a 70-acre land adjacent to Sukna military station in
Siliguri of West Bengal into an educational institution by handing
it over to a private trust.
The controversy involved issuing of no-objection certificate for
the private trust to buy the land for construction of the
educational institution on the condition that wards of army
personnel from Sukna military station too would get to study
there.
Then army chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor's military secretary Lt. Gen.
Avadesh Prakash and then 33 Corps commander Lt. Gen. P.K. Rath
were court martialled in the case and punished for their
involvement in the alienation of the 70-acre land that was
originally a tea estate.
The court martial had dismissed Lt. Gen. Avadesh Prakash from
service after finding him guilty in the case.
Ration Supplies Scam
The case of a scam in ration supplies to army personnel in high
altitude areas broke out in 2007 and then Army Service Corps chief
Lt. Gen. S.K. Sahni was found guilty in the case in 2011 and
dismissed from service.
Sahni had retired from service when he was court martialled and
cashiered from service.
Frozen Meat Scam
Another Army Service Corps top officer, Lt. Gen. S.K. Dahiya, was
also indicted in a separate case involving irregularities in the
procurement of frozen meat for troops posted in Ladakh and
discrepancies in procurement of dry rations in early 2007.
Dahiya is now retired from service, though he was awarded a
recordable censure by the Northern Army commander for the
offences.
Ordnance Factory Board scam
The defence ministry, earlier this month, debarred six defence
firms -- four of them foreign -- from any future deals with Indian
ordnance factories for the next 10 years, after they were named in
a graft case involving former Ordnance Factory Board director
general Sudipto Ghosh.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which investigated the
case, had filed a charge sheet against Ghosh in June 2010 in
Kolkata and recommended the blacklisting of the firms -- Singapore
Technologies Kinetics (STK), Israeli Military Industries (IMI),
Switzerland's Rheinmetall Air Defence, Corporation Defence Russia,
New Delhi-based T.S. Kishan and Company Private Limited and
Ludhiana-based R.K. Machine Tools Limited.
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