Handheld Imagers to thermal socks: 4 cases under CBI scan

In four defence deals, the CBI has already registered Preliminary Enquiries. Now it has one of three options: turn these cases into RCs (reg...

In four defence deals, the CBI has already registered Preliminary Enquiries. Now it has one of three options: turn these cases into RCs (registered cases), asking for departmental action or filing closure reports:

Hand Held Thermal Imagers: No approval was obtained from the Defence Minister when 208 additional HHTIs were ordered from Israeli firm El-Op. In fact, firms not short-listed for procurements were used. Two other companies—Infra Matrix of USA and Sagen of France—who had vied for the contract, were not tested although their rates were 30% cheaper.

155-mm gun spares: The August 24,1999 contract was awarded to Celsius Weapons Systems of Sweden for 489 types of spares for 155-mm guns, valued at Rs 97.65 crore. But when 43 more items were ordered, the MoD ended up paying Rs 6.73 crore extra. The supplies did not reach until a year after Op Vijay.

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Kolos Tyres: For 3,250 tyres for Kolos vehicles, the MoD lost Rs 83.33 lakh by choosing a foreign vendor over ‘‘technically superior’’ tyres by indigenous MRF, as recommended by the Controller of Quality Assurance (Vehicles). Supplies came in as late as April 2000.

Thermal socks: Rs 5.86-crore contract for 36 lakh pairs of high-altitude socks was awarded in June 1999—for use of soldiers in Kargil—to APTEC of Switzerland. But Director General, Quality Assurance, rejected them for poor quality. Money wasn’t recovered, the Army distributed limited socks from ‘‘its existing reserve stocks.’’

Ritu Sarin

Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India’s most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More