New Delhi (dpa) – India's army chief alleged he was offered a bribe of 2.7 million dollars by a defense equipment lobbyist, sparking an uproar in Parliament Monday. General VK Singh told daily newspaper The Hindu that the lobbyist had offered the bribe to make him clear the purchase of 600 “substandard vehicles of a particular make.” Singh said in the interview that the army had 7,000 of such vehicles and many had been sold at “exorbitant prices with no questions asked.” “Just imagine, one of these men had the gumption to walk up to me and tell me that if I cleared the tranche, he would give me 140 million rupees,” the general was quoted as saying. “He was offering a bribe to me, the army chief.” “He told me that people had taken money before me and they will take money after me,” he said. General Singh said he reported the matter to Defense Minister AK Antony, and had offered to resign if the minister felt he was not suitable for his job. Opposition lawmakers staged protests and stalled parliamentary proceedings, demanding an immediate explanation from the government. Later on Monday, the government ordered an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the issue. “It is a serious allegation,” Antony said. Defense Ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar said Antony only ordered the probe after the media reported the allegations. General Singh did not specify the vehicle make or model, or name the lobbyist. He also did not say when the alleged incident happened. He said it proved that “obviously somewhere our standards of probity and integrity have fallen.” The army chief's charges are the latest controversy to hit Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's scandal-tainted government. It has faced flak over alleged involvement by some of its members in high-profile graft cases as well as its alleged inability to curb corruption. Indian media outlets questioned the timing of the allegations that come just months before General Singh is to retire. The army chief was recently involved in a row with the government over his retirement age. He had gone to the Supreme Court contending that his birth records prove he was born in 1951, and was therefore not due to retire until April 2013. But General Singh had to withdraw his petition after the court found no “error or prejudice” in the defense ministry's stand that argued that records in its possession showed that he was born a year earlier and so was to retire in May, at age 62. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/nNZWd Tags: Bribe, India, Military, VK Singh Section: Latest News, South Asia
