NEW DELHI: The CBI may meet Lt. General Tejinder Singh (Retd.) by the end of this week to seek information in connection with the bribery allegations levelled against him by Army Chief Gen V K Singh.
The Army Chief had written two complaints to the CBI, one on March 30 and the second on April 10, alleging that Lt. General Tejinder Singh had offered him a bribe of `14 crore to clear the procurement of 600 Tatra trucks for the Indian Army. According to Gen V K Singh, the bribe offer was made in September 2010 at his South Block office.
On April 11, the CBI registered a preliminary enquiry (PE) in connection with the ‘bribe offer’. The CBI officers had on Friday met the army chief at his office to gather more information in connection with the case.
The investigation agency is yet to convert the PE into a regular case.
On March 30, the CBI had registered a case against Vectra Group and its chairman Ravi Rishi, unknown officials of Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML), Army and the Ministry of Defence for ‘irregularities’ in the procurement of Tatra trucks for the army through BEML.
Defence procurement guidelines state that products should be procured from original equipment manufacturer (OEM). However, the BEML had allegedly procured completely knocked down (CKD) kits of Tatra trucks from Vectra Group of Companies based in the UK and Liechtenstein.
Vectra group companies used to procure these CKD’s from Tatra manufacturing plants situated in Czech Republic and Slovakia and supply them to the army. This was done allegedly in violation of the defence procurement rules.