The man who offered Army chief a Rs 14 cr bribe

The sensational claim by the Army chief, Gen VK Singh, that he was offered a Rs 14 crore bribe by a retired Army officer-turned-lobbyist in order to clinch a deal for the purchase of trucks by the Army is fairly explicit – except for one missing detail. Who was the shadowy man who offered Gen Singh the bribe? Even though the Army chief very deliberately  dropped the bombshell that will reverberate in the political space, he was careful not to invoke his name. Yet, the identity of the alleged offender was made public by no less than Army Headquarters in a press release issued barely three weeks ago. Perhaps it was an inadvertent error, or perhaps the Army headquarters, which was at that time facing serious charges that Army personnel had been snooping on political leaders , was lashing out at those it suspected of being behind the operation. [caption id=“attachment_255388” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Army chief VK SIngh has dropped a bombsell. Image from PIB”] [/caption] The press release - which can be read in full on Headlines Today Defence Correspondent Shiv Aroor’s blog ( here ) and on NDTV Defence Correspondent Nitin Gokhale’s blog ( here ) – explicitly mentions Lt Gen Tejinder Singh, former Director-General of the Defence Intelligence Agency. ( Photograph here .) More damning is the allegation made in the press release that Lt Gen Tejinder Singh was “an allottee in (the) Adarsh Housing society in Mumbai” and that he had “offered bribe” on behalf of two companies that supply vehicles to the Army. In response to that charge, made in an official press release by Army Headquarters, Lt Gen Tejinder Singh had dismissed the allegation as “baseless” and had threatened legal action. ( Report here .) Which perhaps explains Gen VK Singh’s wariness about naming the retired Army officer yet again. Lt Gen Tejinder Singh responded to the latest charge by saying that he did not wish to respond to such baseless allegations, and that he was taking legal action under the law of the land. The whole episode leaves many  questions unanswered. Why did not Gen VK Singh initiate any action against the retired Army officer who, he says, openly offered him a bribe? Singh says he reported the matter to Defence Minister AK Antony and suggested that if Antony considered him a “misfit”, he would resign. But could he not have pushed for penal action to be taken? As a corollary, why did not Antony initiate any action? Why is there a conspiracy of silence over the very brazen attempts by defence lobbyinsts to bribe the Army chief? And why did Gen VK Singh go public with the sensational allegation now? Having virtually lost his case in the age row with the government, and facing the prospect of retirement on 31 May, it appears that Gen VK Singh believes that he has some battles to win with the government - and perhaps with sections within the Army. Given that Gen VK Singh has two more months to retire, he still  has sufficient time to embarrass the government with trickles of sensational information. In his interview to The Hindu, he has hinted ominously that the sutradhar in the drama over the age row will be revealed soon. How the government - and the sections of the Army that he has antagonised with these revelations - will respond is unclear. But it seems certain that the strained relationship between the civilian administration and the Army leadership is going to get a lot more testy, which bodes ill for governance.