IAF officer faces court-martial for taking 'bribe'

[sandeepdg]

NEW DELHI: IAF is likely to court-martial Wing Commander A K Thakur, a transport aircraft pilot who was allegedly caught while demanding a Rs 20,000 bribe from officials of a French aviation company at the Aero-India show in Bangalore in February.

Sources say this comes after the court of inquiry (CoI) against Wing Commander Thakur found him prima facie guilty of demanding the bribe from French company Dassault Aviation for allotting ''a more advantageous position'' for its aircraft in the ''static'' aircraft display section at the airshow.

In the military legal system, disciplinary action in the form of a court-martial is taken after a summary of evidence is recorded, somewhat akin to the framing of charges in the civil system, following a CoI. The court-martial is the actual trial to prove if a person is guilty or not of the charges against him.

There is, however, talk that the entire episode is ''much more murky'' than just a Rs 20,000 bribe being demanded by one of the IAF officers deputed to oversee the arrangements for Aero-India.

Dassault Aviation's Rafale fighter, after all, is one of the six contenders in the hotly-contested race to bag India's gigantic $10.4-billion project for the acquisition of 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) for IAF.

The selection process for this ''mother of all deals'' is in the final stages now, with India poised to begin commercial negotiations with the company whose fighter best met its technical requirements over grueling field trials.

The other contenders are the American F/A-18 'Super Hornet' ( Boeing) and F-16 'Falcon' ( Lockheed Martin), Swedish Gripen (Saab), Russian MiG-35 (United Aircraft Corporation) and Eurofighter Typhoon (consortium of British, German, Spanish and Italian companies. In the project, 18 jets will be bought off-the-shelf and the rest will be manufactured in India under transfer of technology to Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...tial-for-taking-bribe/articleshow/7909340.cms

 

[Rage]

Excellent! Impeach the individual and remove him from office. Once done, make sure he's unemployed by any other government agency as well. I don't want ex-cons that deride the merits of the world's fourth largest air force, if simple dismissal and not imprisonment is meted out, sitting in plushy armchairs somewhere drawing bureaucrat-comparable salaries and all the 'benefits' they entail. Publicize the story far enough, and the private sector will be reluctant to hire him, too. Once unemployed, and unemployable, he will realize what the true meaning of depriving someone else of their livelihoods is; and will serve as an example for all those future convicts, belittling the dignity of office for personal, and truly selfish, gain.