Arrested in Agusta case, intermediary named in deal to make Rafale fashions

Dassault Aviation, the producer of French fight jet Rafale, paid at the least Euros 508,925 towards an bill for Euro 1 million raised by an Indian agency managed by a intermediary — Sushen Gupta — already beneath investigation within the AgustaWestland case, French on-line investigative journal Mediapart reported Monday.
This alleged cost got here to mild throughout a scheduled audit of Dassault’s 2017 accounts by French anti-corruption company AFA. While Dassault claimed the cash was used to pay Defsys Solutions for manufacturing 50 giant reproduction fashions of Rafale jets quickly after the signing of the Indo-French contract in 2016, in response to Mediapart, the corporate couldn’t furnish any proof to AFA that these fashions have been certainly made.
“Yet against all apparent logic, the AFA decided not to refer the matter to prosecutors,” Mediapart mentioned. In the primary of its three-part sequence referred to as “Rafale Papers,” Mediapart mentioned “Dassault group was unable to provide the AFA with a single document showing that these models existed and were delivered, and not even a photograph” and the “inspectors thus suspected that this was a bogus purchase designed to hide hidden financial transactions”.
Defsys Solutions belongs to the household of Sushen Gupta, whose family “acted as middlemen in the aeronautical and defence industries for three generations”, the Mediapart report mentioned.

Sushen Gupta “operated as an agent for Dassault, had worked on the Rafale contract and had allegedly obtained confidential documents from India’s Ministry of Defence”.
US nationwide Gupta was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) within the Rs 3,600-crore VVIP choppers deal case beneath the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in March 2019.
Subsequently, the company filed costs towards him for laundering Rs 55.83 crore, allegedly paid as kickbacks to influential individuals in India to land the deal for AgustaWestland. He is out on bail.
Sushen Gupta and his elder brother Sushant stop Defsys Solutions as administrators in 2018 however they proceed to personal the corporate by family-owned DMG Finances and Investments Pvt Ltd. Despite a number of makes an attempt, the Guptas and their attorneys have been unavailable for remark.
Defsys Solutions was arrange in 2007 by Biswa Bihari Misra, a retired IAF officer, and his household in Bangalore. In 2008, Misra and his spouse transferred the shares to Spiral E-Systems Pvt Ltd and Foresight Solutions Pvt Ltd, two firms subsequently amalgamated with DMG Finances and Investments.
Asked about his partnership with the Guptas, Misra claimed he had “no background” with them. “They (Guptas) came in as investors with funds. I left the company by 2012. I cannot comment on these media reports since I have no knowledge of the functioning of the company for nearly 10 years,” mentioned Misra.
Responding to the Mediapart report, the Congress demanded a radical probe. Said social gathering chief Randeep Surjewala: “The allegations of causing loss to public exchequer, bribery and payment of commission in India’s biggest defence once again stare in the face of the Modi Government.”
The social gathering requested the Government to elucidate how “middleman and payment of commission (was) permitted” in a Government-to-Government Defence Contract. He mentioned the report had affirmed Rahul Gandhi’s cost of corruption within the deal.

In the run-up to the 2019 elections, aside from claiming that the federal government had agreed to pay the next worth per fighter jet, in comparison with what the UPA-led authorities was keen to pay, the Opposition had additionally accused the federal government of favouring Anil Ambani-owned Reliance firms of bagging offset offers value Rs 30,000 crore.
The BJP dismissed the Mediapart report and allegations as “completely baseless” and mentioned {that a} demand for an investigation into the deal had been rejected by the Supreme Court in 2018 and the Comptroller and Auditor General, too, had not discovered something mistaken with it.
Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad mentioned at a press convention that the opposition had made the deal an enormous subject within the 2019 Lok Sabha polls however misplaced badly, and that the Mediapart report might be as a result of “corporate rivalry” in France. He mentioned that the Congress had raised the difficulty beforehand as effectively, however neither the Supreme Court nor the CAG had discovered something mistaken.
The Supreme Court, in December 2018, had dismissed a bunch of petitions filed by former BJP leaders Arun Shourie, Yashwant Sinha, advocate Prashant Bhushan, Aam Aadmi Party Leader Sanjay Singh, amongst others, demanding a court-monitored investigation into the deal.

The apex courtroom had acknowledged that it discovered “no reason for any intervention… on the sensitive issue,” and that “perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a fishing and roving enquiry.”
It famous there was “no occasion to doubt the (decision-making) process” and refused to get into the query of pricing saying that was not the courtroom’s job. In November 2019, a bench, headed by the then Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, additionally rejected evaluation petitions filed by Shourie, Sinha, Bhushan and Singh. —(With ENS)