Court accepts CBI's report exonerating Fernandes in Barak deal

A special court has accepted the CBI report exonerating former defence minister George Fernandes and the then naval chief Admiral Sushil Kumar in a decade-old case of alleged bribery in the Rs 1,150-crore Barak missile deal.
Special CBI judge Gurdeep Singh accepted the agency's closure report which said "allegations are not substantiated against the accused persons" in the case.
Besides the former defence minister and Admiral Kumar, others accused in the case were Fernandes' close aide Jaya Jaitley, arms dealer Suresh Nanda, then Samata Party treasurer Rakesh Kumar Jain and unknown officials of M/s Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd (IAI), Israel.

It was alleged that Fernandes' associate Jaya Jaitley and others had received a bribe of Rs two crore in the Rs 1,150- crore Barak missile deal in 2000.
However, the court agreed with CBI that after going through the documents procured and examined during the investigation, the case has to be closed.
CBI, in its closure reoprt, stated that investigation

into the case covered foreign countries like the United Kingdom, the UAE, Mauritius, Germany and Israel where judicial requests were sent but the replies received from them did not substantiate the allegation of kickbacks levelled against the accused.
The court quoted the report of CBI which said that Israel, in its reply to a Letters Rogatory, denied making any payments to clinch the deal. Israel also refused to give any further details citing confidentiality, the report said.

The agency had also said that reply from other countries also did not corroborate allegations levelled against IAI and other accused mentioned in the FIR.
The case relates to the Ministry of Defence placing supply order for procurement of seven Barak Anti-Missile Defence Systems (AMD) and 200 missiles at a cost of Rs 268.63 million USD on October 23, 2000 for induction in the Indian Navy to the Israel-based firm and its sister concern M/s RAFAEL, Israel.
It was alleged that Nanda, son of ex-Admiral Nanda paid an illegal gratification of Rs one crore to Jaya Jaitley through R K Jain for exercising personal influence on Fernandes, who was the then defence minister and the then Samta Party chief to finalise the deal.