Did middleman in Tatra deal put one over the Czechs as well?

Even as the BEML chief defended the Tatra deal against allegations levelled by Army chief General VK Singh, it seems that the key player in the deal has also been under scrutiny in Czechoslovakia as well. In April 2011, Václav Láska, a former police sleuth, “filed a criminal complaint against the management of Tatra trucks and one of the firm’s major shareholders, Indian businessman Ravinder Kumar Rishi, on behalf of plaintiffs who wish to remain anonymous due to fears of ‘labour persecution,’, says a report on the Czech website Czechposition.com, which was quoting the daily Právo.[caption id=“attachment_261545” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“A Tatra truck. Reuters”]  [/caption] It is not clear whether the Czech and Indian governments have been in consultations on the allegations, but the complaint essentially said that Vectra, Rishi’s company, caused a loss to Tatra in the deal. As minister of defence, Antony could not have not known about the nature of allegations against Rishi and his company. However, Tatra CEO Ronald Adams told Právo newspaper that he “was unaware of the criminal complaint but claims that Láska’s information about the company’s transactions and finances are incorrect. “If he had asked us before filing the complaint, we could have given it [financial information] to him…. We believe that it will show that the deliveries in question are advantageous for Tatra and that they positively influence our overall profitability.” A report by Arun Agrawal in Canary Trap, a website for investigative journalism, says the real problem in the Tatra deal was not that there was anything wrong with the truck, but that it was overpriced. “The scam was not in the bribe offered to the general, but in the purchase price of the equipment.” We have pasted here the link to the report filed by Czechposition.com and also to Canary Trap.  The former site needs registration, but access is pretty easy after that.