In his first reaction to the controversy surrounding French company Dassault Aviation’s delivery of Mirage fighters to India, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said that while the 2002 contract would be fulfilled, the Government might require some ‘‘guarantee statement’’ from the firm. Speaking exclusively to The Indian Express, the Defence Minister said: ‘‘There is a limited issue here. The Indian contract was signed after the other contract (between Dassault and Panamanian entity Keyser Incorporated) was terminated. Our contract will have to be fulfilled otherwise it will pose problems. But we will now have to be doubly assured and we will require some sort of guarantee statement that they (Dassault) will not indulge in this sort of activity.’’ The Mirage deal was shrouded in controversy after Keyser took Dassault Aviation to a Paris court, seeking ‘‘commission’’ for the contract with India signed on September 19, 2002. Mukherjee added that while he was not sure what sort of guarantee India can get, he did raise the issue during his meeting with visiting French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier yesterday. ‘‘I raised the issue with him and our mission has also raised it. They (the French) have pointed out that so far as the present transaction is concerned, there is no role of any middleman, it is prohibited in their law and prohibited in our system also. Such discussions have been going on for the past two years.’’ He said that while the September 2002 judgement in the Dassault case, delivered by a tribunal in Paris, has been ‘‘moving around’’, there was no question of India amending its contract and losing the 52.7 per cent advance paid for delivery of a batch of 10 Mirage 2000s. ‘‘It is not a question of my conviction,’’ Mukherjee said. ‘‘The point is: are we going to lose the advance of 52.7 per cent? The total deal is worth something like $360 million. Are we going to throw away all that money? The jets were to be delivered in January and the delivery has already been delayed by nine months. So what do we gain from this?’’ Defending the 2002 contract, Mukherjee said it was signed not after a single-vendor situation but after floating a global tender. ‘‘Now we can have the luxury of spending as much time as we want but the country will suffer (the 10 aircraft are primarily replacements for aircraft that have gone down). Neither the media nor the decision-makers will pay for the cost escalation (due to delay). It is the taxpayer who will have to pay.’’ Mukherjee added that he did not want to discuss whether Dassault remained India’s first choice for subsequent orders of 125 jets or whether India was getting closer to finalising the contract for Scorpene submarines with France. Before his meeting with Mukherjee, Barnier had said he was hoping to clinch the deal ‘‘in a couple of days’’. ‘‘Why should we talk about our first choice and second choice?’’ the Defence Minister said. ‘‘These decisions will be known only when the Cabinet Committee on Security clears the deals. As far as the submarines are concerned, the French are obviously interested in selling their product. That is all I can say at this stage.’’
