Murky defence deals

Lack of convictions points to a flawed investigation process

The bribery scandal involving the AgustaWestland helicopter deal may have provided the ruling regime with a handy tool to skewer the Congress party but the upheavals in Parliament pointlessly distract from a curious problem that afflicts probes into questionable defence deals; the singular inability of the government's chief investigation agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, to secure a conviction. The scandal over pay-offs involving the purchase of the Bofors howitzers fully 30 years ago is a case in point. Despite considerable political pressure on it at the time, the CBI actually did manage to establish a partial money trail that identified the Italian businessman, the late Ottavio Quattrocchi (he died in 2013) as the conduit for the bribes that were paid to secure the contract. Quattrocchi was duly charge-sheeted but then, curiously, he was allowed to leave the country and actions against him lost momentum, though a separate investigation by Interpol pointed to more dubious dealings connected with the Bofors deal. If the CBI was helpless when the law ministry unfroze two of Quattrocchi's London accounts without referring to it, its inability to secure Quattrocchi's extradition from Argentina where he had been arrested on an Interpol warrant owing to poor documentation was even more disturbing.

Just four years after the Bofors deal came the scandal over the purchase of submarines by the Indian Navy from the German firm HDW. Though the German government admitted to paying commission to agents, the CBI was unable to establish any links. After investigating the case for nearly 15 years, including raiding the premises of a former navy chief, Admiral Nanda, that case was closed without even a charge-sheet and the Supreme Court absolved HDW for lack of evidence. Another signature scandal involved the purchase of Barak missile systems from Israel in 2000, in which names of then defence minister George Fernandes and, former Navy chief Sushil Kumar figured among others. After more than seven years of investigation this case, too, was closed for lack of evidence. The AgustaWestland scandal broke in 2013 and the former Air Force Chief S P Tyagi and his cousins were accused of having received bribes by Finmeccanica, AgustaWestland's Italian parent. But despite being named by the Italian investigations then, no case was registered against Mr Tyagi or family members concerned initially; the CBI's explanation was that the defence ministry had not named any Indian in its complaint.

It may be argued that all these failures point to weaknesses in CBI's sleuthing abilities, but it is also true that the world of arms dealing is scarcely transparent and pay-offs mostly involve complex deals in offshore tax havens which make it notoriously difficult to follow the money. More serious is CBI's institutional vulnerability to overt and covert political pressures. Since all the deals involve the government, it is inconceivable that money trails cannot be traced. The upshot of these failures is that India's urgently needed purchases for the defence forces remain stuck in the murk of corruption. Instead of pursuing political vendetta, the government would do better to empower the CBI to investigate the AgustaWestland deal without fear or favour.