New Delhi, Aug 29: A crucial file, relating to the purchase of 31 Airbus 320 planes worth Rs 2,400 crore for Indian Airlines (IA) is missing from records, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said on Tuesday.
The controversial file contains correspondence among the IA, the Civil Aviation Ministry and Airbus Industrie of France during the mid-‘80s, CBI counsel A.K. Dutt told the Delhi High Court.
A division bench of Chief Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice D.K. Jain asked the CBI to file a status report on what steps have been taken to trace the file, to reconstruct it and fix responsibility for the lapse.
Dutt requested the court that the status report be kept in a sealed cover. The judges agreed. The CBI counsel also said there had been no response from the French government on a letter rogatory (of request) issued while investigating the deal.
Taking note of the French government's stand, the judges asked the Civil Aviation Ministry to indicate whether it has any desire to have further business transactions with Airbus Industrie, a consortium of European plane manufacturers.
The Civil Aviation Ministry and CBI must respond by Sept 20, the court said. The direction followed a public interest petition by advocate B.L. Wadehra, who termed the government's decision in 1986 a result of a murky deal which has gone virtually uninvestigated by the CBI.
“The Airbus 320 deal is one of the five great scandals of the Rajiv Gandhi era,” Mr Wadehra said. “The others being Bofors, HDW submarines, St Kitts and Westland helicopters in which political masters joined hands with senior bureaucrats.''
The A-320 saga dates back to August 1983 when the board of IA directors set up a committee under the chairmanship of Air Marshal Dilbagh Singh and three other experts to formulate a fleet development plan for 1984-91.
The committee recommended the purchase of 12 Boeing 757s with a seating capacity of 206 against the Boeing 737 with 126 seats and Airbus-300 with 273 seats. In June 1984, the IA board accepted Boeing 757 as the most suitable aircraft for the national air network and a letter of intent was placed for Boeing the following month. Significantly, a refundable advance of $900 million was paid.
Within four months, the Civil Aviation Ministry asked the IA to evaluate a proposal sent by Airbus in just three days. But R. Prasad, then economic adviser to the IA managing director, said no such proposal was submitted to the airliner. However, an Airbus representative was expected in a few days.
Still, the ministry persisted with comments from the IA for transmission to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). In June 1985, then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, along with his cabinet colleague and childhood friend Satish Sharma, visited Airbus headquarters at Toulouse near Paris in France.
On August 2, 1985 Rajiv presided over a meeting in which it was decided that the IA should go in for Airbus 320 aircraft with V 2500 engines.
Ironically, at that time, neither the A 320 nor the engine V 2500 had been manufactured, tried or tested. They were on the drawing board stage.
— UNI
