Defence controversies that rocked India

New Delhi: India has been rocked by a series of defence-related controversies—both small and big. Be it the Army chief age row or the Adarsh Society controversy. Whatever the outcome had been, India as a nation has been on the receiving end at the international forum. Here is a low-down on some of the controversies that rocked the defence ministry. Army Chief Age Controversy The age controversy involves the army chief moving the Supreme Court after the defence ministry rejected his statutory complaint, requesting a change of his year of birth in official records to 1951 from 1950. The controversy stems from two sets of records with the Adjutant General's and Military Secretary's branches of the Indian Army. Singh, citing birth records, says he was born in 1951 and was not due to retire until March 2013. But records at the defence ministry show he was born in 1950, which means that Singh, who became army chief in March 2010, is due to step down in May this year. He took the unprecedented step of dragging the government to the court after the defence ministry insisted upon treating 1950, as his official year of birth. Bofors Scam The Bofors scandal estimated to be around Rs 44 crore (Rs 440 million), where many the accused in the scam received kickbacks from Bofors AB to win a bid to supply our armed forced over 400 155 mm field howitzer. In 1984, a tender was floated to acquire Howitzer guns and the French Sofma gun was found to be superior to the Bofors gun but it was later found that Bofors was illegally allowed to alter its bid without submitting a tender again. The impact of the Bofors scandal was so huge that it led to the defeat of the Indian National Congress in 1989 general elections. The prime accused in the case Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman, was seen as a middleman by the CBI as he was accused to be a conduit for bribes in the Bofors case. In 1989, VP Singh's government barred Bofors from entering into any defence contract with India. Adarsh Society Scam The Adarsh Society scam claimed the job of former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan after allegations surfaced of collusion between bureaucrats and politicians to corner flats in the building. The scam involves a prime plot in Colaba, a tony south Mumbai area, on which a 31-storey building was constructed by the society. The flats were originally meant for widows and heroes of the Kargil conflict, but the society now has 103 members, including relatives of Ashok Chavan. Former Army chiefs — Generals Deepak Kapoor and N C Vij — and vice chief Gen Shantanu Choudhary, and former Navy chief Admiral Madhavendra Singh also were allotted flats in the society. Another former Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has also been accused of lapses in allotting apartments meant for the war veterans. Kargil Coffin Scam After the Kargil war, a major controversy broke out over a report that the then government had paid exorbitant sums for coffins procured for soldiers killed in the war of 1999. A Times of India report said that the National Democratic Alliance government had paid Buitron and Baiza, an American company, $2,500 for each of the 500 coffins that were purchased, a vastly inflated sum which was assumed to be 13 times higher than the original sum. The Central Bureau of Investigation had said that the Union ministry of defence had imported caskets and body bags which were of inferior quality. The then defence minister George Fernandes was given a clean chit by the CBI in the matter. Sukna Land Scam A 71-acre civilian land, a tea estate adjacent to Sukna military station in Siliguri district of West Bengal, and efforts by some military officers to transfer the land to a private real estate developer on the pretext of building an educational institution: herein lies the genesis of the Sukna land scam in which an army court found former military secretary Lt Gen Avadesh Prakash guilty and ordered his dismissal. According to a court of inquiry conducted by the army in 2009, Avadesh Prakash was found culpable for influencing Lt Gen P K Rath, the 33 Corps Commander, in 2008 to get the Sukna military station officers to issue a no-objection certificate on the pretext that an educational institution will come up on that land and that wards of army personnel from Sukna military station will get a quota in the educational institution. Siachen Army Ration Pilferage Scam The scam came to light after the police found special rations meant for soldiers serving in the glacial Siachen region being sold in open markets of Leh. The pilferage was detected in the Leh-headquartered 14 Corps area when in a joint operation between the army and the Kashmir Police civilian shopkeepers in Chumathang and Nubra Valley were found selling specialised clothing and equipment like jackets, boots and parachutes, as also foodstuffs, meant for soldiers. For the first time a Lieutenant General of the Army, SK Sahni, was convicted of professional misconduct and sentenced to three years rigorous imprisonment by a general court martial in a multi-million ration scam. Barak Missile Scandal The Barak missile scandal came to light following a sting operation conducted by the magazine, Tehelka, in 2001. According to Tehelka, the purchase of Barak 1 Missile Systems by India from Israel, involved some kind of kickbacks to top politicians and defence officials. On October 23, 2000, contracts were signed to buy seven Barak systems at a total cost $199.50 million and 200 missiles at a cost of $69.13 million, despite objections being raised by APJ Abdul Kalam, who was heading the Defence Research Development Organisation. The CBI arrested Samata Party ex-treasurer R K Jain and cases were also registered against George Fernandes and Jaya Jaitley. Purulia Arms Drop Case On the night of December 17, 1995, a large consignment of arms, including several hundred AK-47 rifles, anti-tank weapons and ammunition were dropped from a Latvian aircraft in Purulia. The Central Bureau of Investigation initially said they were meant for a Hindu militant group, the Ananda Marg, a fact that was not proved in court. On April 28, 2011, the government dismissed the claim by Kim Davy, the key accused in the Purulia arms drop case, that the 1995 operation was carried out by the political forces at the Centre to destabilise the then Jyoti Basu government of West Bengal.