Army chief 'was offered Rs 14 cr bribe' by lobbyist

In his last remaining months in office, the Army chief, General VK Singh, has dropped a bombshell by claiming that he was offered a bribe of Rs 14 crore by a lobbyist for an equipment supplier to the Army.

In an interview to The Hindu ( here ), Singh said that the lobbyist, who had retired recently from the Army, had offered to pay Rs 14 crore as bribe if he cleared the purchase of a particular make of vehicles for the Army.

The vehicles were sub-standard, and there were no proper facilities for service and maintenance, Singh said. Nevertheless, some 7,000 of them had been sold to the Army over the years at excessive prices with no questions asked, he added. The offer of bribe related to the proposed sale of 600 more of the vehicles.

Singh told the daily that he was “shocked” by the brazen offer of a bribe to the head of the Army. “Just imagine, one of these men had the gumption to walk up to me and tell me that if I cleared the tranche, he would give me Rs. 14 crore. He was offering a bribe to me, to the Army Chief."

Singh said the lobbyist had told him that “people had taken money before me and they will take money after me.”

He said he reported the matter to Defence Minister AK Antony. “I told him, if you think I’m a misfit, I will walk out,” Singh told The Hindu.

In the interview, Singh - who recently lost a legal battle with the Defence Ministry over his date of birth - said he had been targeted in that controversy because of his uncompromising stand against corruption.

He offered a tantalising hint to suggest that more revelations in that case would soon come out. “Things are fast unravelling and you will soon see the hand behind the drama. You will soon see who the sutradhar of the play is,” Singh said.

Read more about Singh’s sensational claim to The Hindu here , and his interview addressing larger issues in the Army, the Maoist challenge, and the ‘China threat’ factor here .