New Rafale allegation: Report says CBI refused to probe kickbacks in Rafale deal

New Delhi, Nov 08: A French online journal Mediapart has claimed that the CBI decided not to investigate the alleged kickbacks paid in connection with the Rafale deal.

The documents relating to the kickbacks were sent to the CBI on October 11 2018, a week after the agency received an official complaint. "However, the CBI decided not to open an investigation, even though just seven days after that corruption complaint was filed it received information proving that secret commissions had indeed been paid," the report alleged.

The report claimed that fake invoices enabled French aircraft maker Dassault Aviation to at least 7.5 million Euros to middlemen in a bid to help it secure the Rs 59,000 crore deal with India for 36 Rafael fighter jets.

"It involves offshore companies, dubious contracts and 'false' invoices. Mediapart can reveal that detectives from India's federal police force, the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI), and colleagues from the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which fights money laundering, have had proof since October 2018 that Dassault paid at least €7.5 million in secret commissions to middleman Sushen Gupta," the report said.

In April 2021, the same journal claimed that it was in possession of documents that showed Dassault and its industrial partner, Thales paid middleman Gupta several million Euros in secret commissions in connection with the Rafael deal.

The report in April said that the bulk of the payments were made before 2013."According to an accounts spreadsheet belonging to Sushen Gupta, an entity called simply 'D', which is a code he regularly used to designate Dassault, paid €14.6 million to Interdev in Singapore over the period 2004-2013," it further added.

(The document cited by Mediapart have not been reviewed by OneIndia)