Helicopter scandal: Antony took no action on bribery charges for 11 months
Sources said AK Antony is determined to get to the bottom of the bribery scandal threatening to taint his squeaky clean political track record.
NEW DELHI: The Rs 3,546-crore contract for 12 AW-101 helicopters, inked in February 2010, has emerged as a test case for defence minister A K Antony, who has built his entire political career on a reputation for honesty, government circles acknowledge.
Although no finger has been pointed at Antony, he is being blamed for not movingly swiftly enough when the first whiffs of a bribery scandal surfaced over 11 months ago. The minister has been criticized for bringing in the CBI only this week after the top executives of AgustaWestland and its parent company Finmeccanica were arrested in Italy.
Sources said the Congress veteran was determined to get to the bottom of the bribery scandal threatening to taint his squeaky clean political track record.
A strong indication of Antony's resolve came in the form of a six-page factsheet, issued by the MoD on Thursday, which shielded him from the controversial decision to tweak the technical specifications for the helicopters.
Government sources said outright cancellation of the contract was no longer a far-fetched possibility. "If the contracts for the Bofors howitzers and the HDW submarines in the mid-1980s could be terminated mid-way, even if they hit the operational readiness and modernization of the armed forces in a major way, these are just choppers meant for VVIP travel,'' said a source.
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