The French publication "Mediapart" has in a report based on an investigation by the country's anti-corruption agency alleged that the 2016 contract for the sale of 36 Rafale jets to India involves an amount of 1.1 million Euro payment tendered by aviation major Dassault to a middleman in India.
Claiming that the money was used for 50 replicas of the Rafale jets, Dassault said that it cannot deliver any document or photograph as evidence that these rafales were delivered.
The report said that the unnamed middleman is also an accused in another defence deal.
"The company (Dassault) said the money was used to pay for the manufacture of 50 large replica models of Rafale jets, even though the inspectors were given no proof that these models were made," Mediapart reported.
The accusations were first uncovered by the French anti-corruption agency Agence Francaise Anticorruption (AFA) during their audit of Dassault, the report stated, adding that the AFA "against all apparent logic" chose not to refer the case to prosecutors.
The AFA report said, "As they combed through the 2017 accounts, the AFA inspectors raised an eyebrow when they came across an item of expenditure costing 508,925 euros and entered under the heading 'gifts to clients'. The sum was indeed huge for a gift. Though French law does not set out precise limits, legal precedents suggest that giving a watch or an expensive meal costing several hundred Euros can be enough to constitute corruption."
To this larger than usual gift that Dassault supplied the AFA with a proforma bill dated March 30, 2017, which was supplied by an Indian company called Defsys Solutions, the report said.
As per the report, "This invoice, which related to 50 per cent of the total order, was for the manufacture of 50 models of the Rafale C, with a price per unit of € 20,357.”
Sushen Gupta who is being probed into the AgustaWestland case involving kickbacks paid in India in a deal for VVIP choppers by the CBI is the one who runs Defsys Solutions. Earlier Gupta was arrested and has been granted bail in the chopper deal case.
Defsys is one of the subcontractors of Dassault in India.
Demanding an explanation from Dassault, the AFA investigators asked: "Why had Dassault ordered an Indian company to make models of its own aircraft at 20,000 Euros a plane? Why was this expenditure entered in the accounts as 'a gift to client'? And were these models, each one of which was supposed to be the size of a small car, really ever made?"
Meanwhile, the Mediapart report said that Dassault has not furnished any single document attesting that these models existed and were delivered, and not even a photograph to tha AFA.
While the AFA inspectors suspect that these purchases were fake just to hide financial transactions.
The Congress party has demanded Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement on the revelation.
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Asking about the involvement of a huge amount, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, "An investigation conducted by French Anti-Corruption Agency - AFA has now revealed that after signing of the deal in 2016, Dassault paid 1.1 Million Euro to a middleman i.e. Defsys Solutions. This amount was shown as 'Expenditure by Dassault' as 'Gifts to Clients'.”
He further added that this revelation requires a full and independent investigation into India's biggest defence deal to find out as to how much bribery and commission, in reality, if any, was paid and to whom in the Indian government?