'Gen V K Singh did not seriously pursue bribe matter'
Rajat Pandit & Josy Joseph, TNN | Mar 27, 2012, 12.50AM IST
NEW DELHI: Army chief General V K Singh will not fade away as an old soldier. He has fired another damaging salvo at the government by disclosing he was offered Rs 14 crore bribe by a lobbyist barely six months after he took over as the Army chief in 2010.
His disclosure prompted a rattled government to order a "comprehensive" CBI inquiry into the matter. Defence minister A K Antony, on the back-foot after opposition MPs forced adjournment of both houses of Parliament on Monday, said, "The allegations are serious. We have to handle it...I have taken action (by ordering the inquiry)."
Although Gen Singh did not name the lobbyist, an Army HQ press statement on March 5 had directly accused Lt-General Tejinder Singh, who retired as the chief of the Defence Intelligence Agency in July 2010, of spreading "salacious and mala fide stories".
The CBI quickly constituted a team to probe the matter and lodge a case, marking yet another twist in the continuing saga of unseemly controversies dogging the 1.13-million strong Army, from Gen Singh's bitter tussle with the defence ministry over his actual age to the force being accused of clandestinely tapping phones of senior ministry officials, all of which seem to be intertwined.
His most recent allegations are sure to mark Gen Singh's tenure as one of the most controversy ridden in the Army's history. It left the government squirming and saw Opposition stalling Parliament and demanding that explanation about what has been done on the army chief's complaint.
Gen Singh's penchant to repeatedly embarrass the government has further reduced his popularity in the higher echelons of UPA-II, while also sharpening the civil-military divide like never before.
Sources reveal that a powerful group, in the cabinet and top bureaucracy, had pressed the government to sack Gen Singh after he decided to move the Supreme Court in January - an action that was the first of its kind display of dissent by a serving military chief. But Antony protected Gen Singh against such a drastic action.
Antony, however, found himself searching for words on Monday with the Army Chief's fresh claim that seemed to suggest inaction or a weak response from the minister in 2010, when Gen Singh apprised him of the alleged attempt to bribe him.
"Meri baat sunkar Raksha Mantri ne apna matha peet liye tha (Antony held his head in his hands in sheer dismay when I told him). He said such people should be kept out," said Gen Singh.
Top MoD sources, while admitting Gen Singh had indeed verbally reported the bribe attempt to Antony, said the Army chief did not submit a written complaint or "seriously pursue the matter" thereafter.
"As a public servant, Gen Singh could have got the person offering the bribe arrested or lodged an FIR. He has been writing letters to the minister, right, left and center, on his age and other issues. Why did he not do the same for this?" said a source.
Gen Singh says the lobbyist's bribe offer, on behalf of a foreign military vehicle supplier that has a tie-up with a defence PSU, was made in "an indirect way" and left him completely stumped.
The statement on retired Lt Gen Tejinder Singh is not the only evidence of divisions in the Army. Indicative of the raging factional feud within the force, the Army has even accused some other "disgruntled" serving and retired military intelligence officers of "fabricating the fiction" that a covert Army unit had spied on MoD officials during the prolonged stand-off over Gen Singh's age. A serving major-general and a colonel are already facing the heat in the case.
Lt-Gen Singh (retired) on being contacted, said, "I have not worked for anybody or on anyone's behalf since the day I retired. The allegations against me are totally false. Based on the Army's earlier press statement, I have issued legal notices to all concerned, including the chief. We will take follow-up legal action, sooner than latter."
With a marked "trust deficit" emerging between Antony and Gen Singh, the government had last month announced that Eastern Army commander Lt-Gen Bikram Singh would take over as the next chief when Gen Singh retires on May 31, three months in advance instead of normal two-month norm as a measure of abundant precaution.
Many within the government, who had been extremely unsympathetic towards Gen Singh's fight over age issue, are now feeling vindicated, as the Army chief continues to embarrass the government in unexpected ways.
After the Supreme Court gave no relief to Gen Singh on his age issue, the government was expecting him to quietly bide time till retirement. Indications are that Gen Singh's fresh claims, when Parliament is in session and embarrassing one of the senior-most Congress leaders known for his personal integrity, hasn't gone down well with the Congress party.
While many had been comparing the relations of Gen Singh and the government to the stand-off between Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat and the then NDA government in 1998, the noticeable difference has been Antony's support of his Army chief. However, this previously unconditional support may not last much longer, given the unwanted controversy into which the defence minister has now been dragged in by Gen Singh.
'Gen V K Singh did not seriously pursue bribe matter' - The Times of India