The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) should register a regular criminal case against Rolls-Royce and its middlemen for paying kickbacks to secure Indian defence deals, lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan has said in a letter to CBI chief Alok Kumar Verma.
Mr. Bhushan drew Mr. Verma’s attention to an extensive London court judgment that captures in detail the alleged corruption perpetuated by the global engineering giant.
Independent probe
“We are considering filing a PIL petition,” Mr. Bhushan told The Hindu . Mr. Verma was yet to respond to his letter sent on March 8, he said.
“Once it has been confirmed by the Court in London that the above-named company had made payment of commissions to the intermediaries/agents while entering into defence contracts with India, it is imperative that an independent investigation by registering a regular case is conducted here to find out who were the intermediaries and beneficiaries in defence contracts of Rolls- Royce with India so that consequent legal action could be taken against them,” Mr. Bhushan has said in the letter to the CBI chief.
The letter comes in light of the January 17 order of the Crown Court, London which has recorded that Rolls Royce has been engaging middlemen in various defence contracts with India, in violation of rules prohibiting use of middlemen. The judgement is part of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) between Rolls Royce and Serious Fraud Office, U.K., under which the company has agreed to pay a fine of £671 million for its mistakes.
The London court judgment had found “concealment or obfuscation of the use of intermediaries involved in its defence business in India between 2005 and 2009 when the use of intermediaries was restricted.” The judgement listed the Indian Air Force contract for the Advanced Jet Trainers and Navy’s Sea Harrier contract among those in which middlemen were involved in India.
While the DPA does not name the middlemen for the company, Mr. Bhushan points out that Sudhir Choudhrie, who figures in CBI’s ‘undesirable contact men’ list, was among those arrested by SFO, U.K. in February 2014 “for their alleged involvement as middlemen for Rolls Royce in various contracts.”
