The Central government has rejected calls for cancellation of the Rs 13,500 crore deal with a French company to acquire six Scorpene submarines, but said it could be considered if it was proved middlemen were involved in it.
"The courts are seized of the matter as a number of suits have been filed and we propose to go by the adjudication process," Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee told PTI.
The Minister, who had faced opposition attack in Parliament and outside on the issue, said the government had no plans to order a probe since the matter is before courts.
"Allegations have been levelled and the French company (Thales) has filed defamation suit saying that e-mails and documents published in a news journal are fabricated," Mukherjee said, observing that it was now upto the judiciary to take a stand.
"The contract can be cancelled only if it is proved that the company (involved in the deal) had employed middlemen," the defence minister said, dismissing opposition charges.
Mukherjee said that naval operations directorate war room leak case and allegations of payment of kickbacks in the Scorpene deal were two issues. In the war room leak case, the Central Bureau of Investigation probe is currently on and 'if any link' is established in the two cases, then the probe can also cover the submarine contract, he said.
In the course of a wide-ranging interview, Mukherjee touched upon issues like floating of international tenders to acquire 126 new multi-role fighter aircraft for Indian Air Force and the ongoing modernisation drive in the armed forces.
While stating that there was no proposal to raise the numbers of aircraft to be bought, the Defence Minister said that at the same time, efforts would be on to maintain the squadron strength of the Air Force in a battle-readiness stage.
"We are in the process of phasing out of Mig-21 and some other older fighters but we have to ensure that effective battle strength of our air warriors is maintained," Mukherjee said.
Asked whether the delay in integrating weapon systems and radars in the country's indigenous Light Combat Aircraft would not necessitate acquisition of much larger number of warplanes, the defence minister said Defence Research and Development Organisation was working on keeping LCA project on track.
"The DRDO is working out arrangements to seek collaboration in weaponisation and manufacture of indigenous Kaveri engine for the LCA," he said, adding that the government had given the go ahead for induction of ten LCAs in Air Force to begin with.
Maintaining that the modernisation drive in the armed forces 'was on course,' Mukherjee said that the emphasis of his government was to reverse the trend of erstwhile National Democratic Alliance regime of not being able to utilise the budgetary outlays on the capital front.
Reeling out figures in support of his contention that there was 'slackness' during the BJP-led regime, Mukherjee said in three financial years -- 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04 -- the utilisation capital outlay had hovered around 80 per cent while in 2004-05 and 2005-06, it had averaged nearly cent per cent.
"We had a slight shortfall in 2005-06 because we were unable to tie up projects," he said.
Asked about the government indecision in selection of an upgraded 155 mm guns from the Army, which has been hanging for the past 16 years, the defence minister said the final tests would get underway soon.
In an unprecedented step, the Army is going in for a fourth round of trials to choose between Swedish SWS Defence Bofors 155mm and Israeli Soltum long-range guns. The third bidder, South African Denel Gun has been blacklisted and barred from trials.
On the induction of indigenous main battle tank 'Arjun', the minister said the induction was on schedule. However, the Army is yet to undertake comparative trials for the tanks pitting them against Russian-acquired T-90s and T-72 tanks.
The erstwhile NDA government before bowing out of power had cleared induction of 124 Arjun tanks into the Army. Mukherjee said the new government proposed to enhance the numbers of tanks for the Army.
