- Dassault bought Reliance shares worth Rs 10 paying more than 2000 percent.
- Work allotted to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited was taken back and handed over to Reliance.
- Dassault invested 17 thousand crores in a shell company run by Reliance.
The Government has been hiding facts and figures in the Parliament as well as in Supreme court regarding the procurement of the Rafael aircrafts from France. Though an investigation is being conducted by the French authorities into the entire Rafael deal with India, it cannot be ascertained as to what will be the outcome of the investigation.
What can be said is beyond doubt that in this defence deal with India, there is a dubious role of the director VR Pasino and Dassault Aircraft Services India private Limited. There seems to be deep nexus between the two. During the time when the deal was struck between the company and the government, Pasino had close proximity with a senior minister in the Union council of ministers in India. The exact structure of the ‘proximity’ cannot be judged but Pasino knew him, who is product of JNU, since 2014.
Later, several pictures of the Indian minister which were present on the Facebook page of VR Pasino, posted way back before the deal, were removed from his official page. Making it evidently clear that Pasino knew this female minister from much before when the actual Rafael deal was struck and had to remove them to shield his ‘family relations’ with the minister.
Interestingly, an official photograph taken in 2019 of Pasino meeting Union Minister Rajnath Singh, during an official programme was not removed from his Facebook profile raising fingers as to why photographs related to a minister was removed while the photograph of the other minister was present on his profile page. It raises doubt on the intent for deletion of the pic with the female minister and the alleged role of Pasino in the deal.
When contacted on phone, Pasino never answered to our queries related to the Rafael defence deal and decided to keep mum.
The story of the deal runs back to 2011 when the 8th Air Show Aviation Exhibition was organised in Bangaluru organised by the defence Ministry. Companies from America. Russia, France Britan, Germany, Israel and many more participated.
In that exhibition Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon, Lockheed Martin F-21, Mikoyan MiG-35, and Saab JAS 39 Gripen were a part of the show. Later, out of these only 6 companies took part in the bidding for procurement of 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA). As Dassault quoted the lowest among the six companies, they were awarded the project for supplying fighter planes. It is worthwhile to mention here that Wing Commander AK Thakur was arrested while taking a bribe and the name of Dassault also emerged during the investigations.
Dassault, while replying to the allegations organised a press conference and informed the media that complaint against the Wing Commander was made by Rafael itself and refuted the allegations.
Whatever may be the stand, but makes one thing evidently clear that the Defence Expo is a back door entry for defence manufacturers to enter in to the field. Bribing is also a key component as the Wing Commander’s Thakur’s arrest proved.
Wing Commander A.K. Thakur was just a small fish on the pond. He fell victim to the greed of the capitalists.
The deal for 126 fighter planes was changed to purchase of 36 fighter planes after Modi Government came into power. The most important aspect of the deal was under the Make in India policy of the Modi government, launched during the initial days of the Modi Government, all the work from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited was transferred to a local but private entity- Anil Ambani’s company Reliance Industry.
Dassault Aircraft Services India Private Limited used crores of rupees received from France to fix this deal and for lobbying for Rafale and showed this amount in water, electricity, taxi, office expense or other unnecessary items.
The point of the matter is how the transactions took place between Reliance Infrastructure and Dassault before the investigation. Dassault gave commission to a subsidiary of Anil Ambani’s company Reliance Infrastructure in exchange for the deal. However, the documents show that Dassault is authorized to pay commission on behalf of the board of directors. Ignoring the fact that brokerage in defence deals is a criminal act in India.
Overall, Dassault transferred the money by purchasing shares of the company. This was a company accounts of which were only on the papers and was a shell company. The price of one share was Rs 10, which Dassault bought a single share spending 2000 percent more than the actual price.
The transfer of money from Dassault to the shell company made it a thousand crore company overnight. The documents related to Dassault and Reliance show that this French company was to invest Rs. 30 thousand crores in Reliance; despite this, the government deviated from the actual facts and kept the nation in dark.
The reality was Dassault had invested Rs 1723.61 thousand crore in another subsidiary company of Reliance as an offset partner only after the deal was signed.
The people of the country are the owners of democracy. Cheating the public is equivalent to cheating the democratic set up. On one hand the government was lying and on the other hand a company like Reliance was stabbing the country on its back.
Reliance kept clarifying that it did not get even a single rupee in this deal as an offset partner. At the time of the controversy, Reliance CEO Rajesh Dhingra said that Reliance had to get the offset partner related to Rafale from the Defence Ministry. The truth was that apart from the brokerage money, Reliance also snatched away the work of Rafale from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). They were also given the manufacturing work of spare parts of the small type Falcon aircraft.
Rajesh Dhingra, on the other hand, was not only shying away from this deal but was also denying the documents of his own company in which Reliance itself had claimed that the company has been chosen by Dassault as the offset partner for Rs 30,000 crore. However, there is a difference between making a choice and implementing it; but here in 2017 itself, Rs 1723.61 thousand crores had been transferred; yet Rajesh Dhingra kept lying and saying that Reliance did not get the offset of Rs 30,000 crores.
Based on the facts, it can be claimed that if France investigates properly to clear the air and punish the guilty in the paybacks.
