Pranab okayed Israel missile deal: Antony

Washing his hands of the decision not to invite global tenders for the medium-range surface-to-air missile (MRSAM) deal with the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), defence minister AK Antony has said it was his predecessor in the ministry, Pranab Mukherjee, who took this call.

Skirting several key questions regarding the Rs10,000 crore contract, Antony, in a detailed interview with Malayalam news channel India Vision, said there was tremendous pressure on him from the armed forces to clear the deal.

DNA, in a series of investigations, has exposed how the MRSAM contract was signed with IAI, a company that is being probed by the CBI in the Barak deal, just days before the general election was announced despite its opaque legal status and “6% business charges”. Moreover, the missiles are being procured ignoring an indigenous missile in the same class.  

Then the interviewer, Bhagath Chandrasekar, asked Antony about the indigenously developed Advance Air Defence (AAD) missile, the minister chose to discuss the different and significantly less efficient missile Akash. The AAD missile is as powerful as the proposed MRSAM on many counts. Its only weakness relates to retreating targets, which can be fixed.

Antony said his predecessor, Pranab Mukherjee, and the then Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) gave the go-ahead for the MRSAM deal without a global tender.
“In 2005 and 2006, it was the DAC, comprising the army chief, navy chief, air force chief, defence secretary, defence productions secretary, and DRDO [Defence Research and Development Organisation] secretary, that decided how the purchase had to be done, the quality of the product, the kind of buy it has to be, whether or not it has to be by a single or global tender. The committee had decided on such issues way back in 2006, much before I entered (the defence ministry).”

Mukherjee, who held dual charge of external affairs after K Natwar Singh was sacked in November 2005 for his alleged involvement in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, was shifted over completely to the external affairs ministry in October 2006. That was when Antony took his place in defence.

Antony also misled the interviewer when asked about the vigilance guidelines on how to deal with IAI and Rafael. He said they “are all rumours”.

DNA had reproduced the full-page guidelines which prohibited single-tender contracts with IAI and Rafael. The note was issued “with the approval of the honourable RM (raksha mantra)”.

Bhagath Chandrasekar: Despite the fact that the DRDO had successfully produced an advanced air defence missile, why did the Centre decide to purchase a missile system from an Israeli company? You being a leader who follows Nehru’s path, why did you allot the contract to a foreign company ignoring an Indian one?

AK Antony: The range of the Akash missile was only 30km while that of the MRSAM is 70km. The missile systems now being used in our country, on the border in Kashmir and Punjab, were introduced years ago and are outmoded. Since 2002, the Indian Air Force had been compelling us to change those systems and bring in MRSAM. As regards the requisite weapon for the purpose of our national security, it is neither the prime minister’s nor the defence minister’s suggestions that would be taken into account.

The say on the matter is that of the army, navy, and air force. After taking into serious account air force requests since 2002, to bring in MRSAM, the Centre approved of the MRSAM project in 2005. Negotiations in this regard were doing the rounds since 2005. The other processes had commenced in 2006, before my entry therein.