The Hindu : HC disposes of PILs in HDW deal case

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003

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National

HC disposes of PILs in HDW deal case

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI MARCH 24. The Delhi High Court today finally disposed of the public interest litigations seeking direction to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to expedite investigation into the 15-year-old HDW submarine deal case.

A Division Bench, comprising the Chief Justice, Justice B.C. Patel, and Justice B.D. Ahmed, disposed of the petition filed by B.L. Wadhera, a Delhi High Court lawyer, when the CBI submitted that it had filed a closure report in the trial court concerned urging the Special Court to close the case.

The High Court had in January allowed the CBI to file a closure report in the case after the latter had submitted that the probe could not be continued further as the Swiss and German authorities had expressed their inability to provide any help in the investigation. The High Court had asked the CBI to file the closure report in the trial court before March 24.

The High Court was seized of the matter for the past several years. The matter had reached there after Mr. Wadhera filed the petition seeking expeditious investigation into the case.

Later, the Janata Party president, Subramanian Swamy, also intervened in the matter when he, in a petition filed in the High Court, alleged that another German company, AEG, had paid bribe to the New Government Electrical Factory (NGEF) of the Karnataka Government in the supply of torpedoes for the two Advance Class submarines supplied by HDW of Germany for the Indian Navy.

The CBI's FIR in the matter had the names of several defence officials and private companies as accused. The investigating agency had alleged that about seven per cent of the Rs. 420-crore deal was paid as commission by the supplier company to get the supply order.

The matter had come in a public notice when the then Indian ambassador in Germany had written to the then Defence Minister in the Rajiv Gandhi Cabinet, V.P. Singh, that there was an accusation that the supplier company had paid seven per cent as commission to middlemen to strike the deal.

Mr. Singh had immediately ordered an inquiry into the deal, which had created a rift between him and Rajiv Gandhi leading to the exit of the Defence Minister from the Cabinet.

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