News Analysis India

Tag: Agence Française Anticorruption

  • ‘No violations reported’: Dassault rejects fresh allegations of corruption in Rafale deal

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: French aerospace major Dassault Aviation on Thursday rejected fresh allegations of corruption in the Rafale fighter jet deal with India, saying no violations were reported in the frame of the contract, days after French online journal ‘Mediapart’ alleged that the jet manufacturer had paid nearly one million Euros to an Indian middleman.

    According to the French media, the report was based on an investigation by the country’s anti-corruption agency Agence Francaise Anticorruption (AFA).

    Rejecting the allegations, a Dassault Aviation spokesperson said,”numerous controls are carried out by official organisations, including the French Anti-Corruption Agency. No violations were reported, notably in the frame of the contract with India for the acquisition of 36 Rafales.”

    The spokesperson said Dassault Aviation, since the early 2000s, has “implemented strict internal procedures to prevent corruption, guaranteeing the integrity, ethics and reputation of the company in its industrial and commercial relations”.

    The French media report said that Dassault claimed the money was paid for 50 replicas of Rafale jets and the order was given to an Indian defence company.

    It also mentioned that the inspectors of the AFA were given no proof that these models were made.

    Following the allegations, the Indian company on Tuesday released a statement and tax invoices stating that the allegations were totally unfounded.

    The Dassault official said the company reiterated that it acts in strict compliance with the OECD’s (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) anti-bribery convention and national laws, in particular the Sapin 2 law.

    Under the Sapin 2 law that came into force in 2017, French companies are required to implement a specific internal compliance programme to fight corruption.

    “In the context of the Sapin 2 law, the company has completed and strengthened its system for the prevention and detection of corruption and influence peddling, both at the level of the parent company and its subsidiaries,” the official said.

    The company also noted that the Rafale deal was based on a government-to-government framework.

    “This contract, as well as the offsets corresponding contract, meet the criteria established by these regulations and are being executed in full transparency between the various government and industrial partners,” the spokesperson added.

    The company has delivered 14 Rafale jets to the Indian Air Force so far.

    The official said aircraft were delivered in respect of the schedule, despite the COVID-19 health crisis.

    “Dassault Aviation and the Reliance Group established the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) joint venture in 2017 and built a plant in Nagpur that has been producing numerous Falcon parts and pieces since 2018,” the official said.

    “Dassault Aviation and its partners are working with 60 companies in India and negotiations are underway to establish potential new cooperations,” the official noted.

    The NDA government had inked a Rs 59,000-crore deal on September 23, 2016 to procure 36 Rafale jets from French aerospace major Dassault Aviation after a nearly seven-year exercise to procure 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) for the Indian Air Force did not fructify during the UPA regime.

    Prior to the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, the Congress raised several questions about the deal, including on rates of the aircraft, and alleged corruption but the government rejected all the charges.

  • Middleman in Rafale deal kicks up dogfight between Congress and BJP

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI: The newly inducted Rafale fighter jets flew into a fresh storm with a French online journal claiming that manufacturer Dassault Aviation paid 1 million euro to an Indian middleman as gift after the Rs 58,000 crore government-to-government deal in 2016 for 36 jets for the Indian Air Force.

    The suspect payment was detected by French anti-corruption agency, Agence Française Anticorruption (AFA), during audit, revealed Mediapart.

    It identified the recipient as Defsys Solutions, a group run by a Gupta family, including Sushen Gupta, who has been under investigation over his role in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam.

    The report kicked up a political storm with Congress demanding a thorough probe and the BJP rejecting charges of corruption as completely baseless.

    AFA inspectors came across the suspect payment of 508,925 euros under the head gifts to clients, for which Dassault produced an invoice from Defsys.

    Mediapart, citing the AFA report, said, “This invoice, which related to 50% of the total order (1,017,850), was for the manufacture of 50 (mega sized) models of the Rafale C, with a price per unit of €20,357.”

    Chief Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala claimed that the report has proved that there was corruption in the biggest defence deal, and asked why action should not be taken against those involved, including Dassault Aviation, for violating the defence procurement procedure, which clearly entails that there will be no middlemen.

    Hitting back at the Congress, BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad dismissed as “completely baseless” the allegations of corruption in the Rafale deal and said the opposition party made a big issue of the defence deal in 2019 Lok Sabha polls but lost badly.

    The Supreme Court had rejected a demand for a probe in the purchase of the fighter aircraft and the CAG also found nothing wrong, Prasad said.

    The allegations of corruption were “completely baseless”, the minister said, and suggested that a report in the French media about the alleged financial irregularity in the deal may be due to “corporate rivalry” in that country.

    According to the Mediapart, its report was based on an investigation by the country’s anti-corruption agency Agence Francaise Anticorruption (AFA), which found that after inking the deal, payment was made by the Dassault Aviation, the manufacturer of Rafale fighter jets.

    As per the report, the manufacturer has not been able to answer the queries posed by the AFA.

    There was no immediate reaction from the Defence ministry on the French media report.

    Surjewala said their leader Rahul Gandhi’s oft-repeated allegations of corruption in the deal were proved correct now.

    He said as per the French portal’s report, an investigation conducted AFA has revealed that after signing of the deal in 2016, Rafale’s manufacturer Dassault allegedly paid 1.1 million euros to Defsys Solutions, which is an Indian company.

    “Does it now not require a full and independent investigation into India’s biggest defence deal to find out as to how much bribery and commission in reality, if any, was paid and to whom in the Indian government,” he asked at a press conference.

    “Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi answer to the nation now?” he asked.

    In his counter-attack, Prasad said,”the Congress is raising the Rafale issue again. It lost in the Supreme Court. They campaigned in the 2019 polls on the Rafale issue, threw all kinds of abuses at the prime minister and still lost. How many seats did it get.”

    The minister also noted that Sushen Gupta, the middleman whose name has cropped up in the French report on the Rafale deal, was arrested in the AgustaWestland case by the Enforcement Directorate in 2019.

    In this probe, the names of many Congress leaders had surfaced, Prasad said and accused the Congress of trying to “weaken” the security forces.

    The Indian Air Force received a fleet of fighter aircraft in Rafale after 30 years, he said, adding that had it been there during the time of the Balakot operation to target terrorists in Pakistan then Indian aircraft would not have to cross the borders to carry out the strike.

    The Congress leader said the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) as also the stated Indian government policy envisage that there will be an Integrity Clause in every defence purchase contract which clearly states that there can be no middleman or payment of commission or bribe.

    Surjewala said that as per the DPP, any evidence of middleman or commission or bribery has serious penal consequences including the banning of the supplier, cancellation of contract, registration of an FIR and imposition of heavy financial penalties on the company.

    “Has it not vitiated the Rafale deal entailing imposition of heavy financial penalties on Dassault, banning of the company, registration of an FIR and other penal consequences,” he asked, while citing the example of Agusta Westland chopper deal where the CBI has already initiated action.

    He asked whether the payment of 1.1 million euros shown by Dassault as ‘Gifts to Clients’ in reality a commission paid to the middleman for the Rafale deal.

    “How can middleman and payment of commission be permitted in a government-to-government Defence Contract or in any Defence procurement in India in violation of the mandatory Defence Procurement Procedure,” he asked.

    The Congress leader alleged that “India’s biggest defence deal involving the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets from the Dassault Aviation is a sordid saga of ‘loss to public exchequer, squandering national interests, propagating the culture of crony capitalism and shrouded in secrecy by negating the mandatory aspects of procurement.

    ” Alleging that there was lack of transparency and opaqueness in this government, Surjewala claimed that the Prime Minister went ahead and purchased the aircraft without following any procedure, and has also refused to submit himself to an investigation.

    The government did not provide full documents to the CAG, he claimed.

    “India has a no middleman, no commission stated policy. Why can’t the present Prime Minister order an impartial investigation now, so that we know who in his Government took the bribe and the commission and how many thousand crores, if any,” he said.

    Asked what would be the next step of the Congress, he said, “we will wait for next 48 hours for the Government to react and then take the next step.

    (With PTI Inputs)