MillenniumPost
Opinion

A raw deal

It is astounding and condemnable that in spite of an advisory by RAW to the public sector oil giant ONGC about the activities of the notorious arms dealer Ravi Rishi, this corporation went ahead and did business with his firm Global Vectra Helicorp Ltd. It is now a public fact that Rishi is facing a CBI probe after army chief Gen Singh alleged he was offered a bribe to renew a contract for trucks sourced from Tatra, a firm controlled by Rishi through the Vectra Group. The facts of Rishi’s unethical business dealings were not hidden from government agencies even before they became public and were under investigation even prior to Gen VK Singh’s revelation. It is to the credit of RAW that as early as 25 January 2010, it had issued an advisory to the chairman and managing director of ONGC against Messrs Global Vectra Helicorp Ltd, a Rishi firm which clearly and explicitly warned about the Rishi group’s involvement with criminal syndicates, money laundering, misrepresentation and receiving unaccounted money from foreign sources having links with terrorists. The advisory also clearly stated that the group was under investigation by the department and advised against getting into any contract pending completion of investigation. The charges against the Rishi group were strong and it is inexplicable how ONGC disregarded them.  It is completely against the norms of governance for ONGC, which is a corporation owned by the state, to go against an advisory of an intelligence and police department of the Government of India that reports to the prime minister himself.

It is abnormal for a public sector organisation to disobey an advisory on the criminal activities of a private firm by a government intelligence agency. The firm should have gone immediately on the banned list. Instead, it was encouraged and it was the advisory instead that was withdrawn. That ONGC went ahead with the deal also fuels the suspicion that Rishi’s group had the patronage of someone high up in government. This suspicion is further reinforced by the fact that nine of this firm’s helicopters on contract with ONGC were declared non–functional in the month of April and May 2009 and secretly used for election duty. Clearly the public has been taken for a ride in this matter. It is amazing how an unethical arms dealer has been allowed to flourish and enrich himself at the cost of the public exchequer. This is not the way a public corporation is meant to be run. This is a first rate scandal. The whole matter needs to be thoroughly probed and those who have offered Rishi protection and patronage as well as those who have benefited from him have to be identified, be so howsoever so high, and stringently punished.   
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