In what could become a trend for the line of defence taken by indicted Army officers before the Justice Venkatswami Commission, the Tehelka team is now being confronted with portions of the 275-page proceedings of the Army’s own court of inquiry.A copy of the proceedings, held between March and April last year, has been provided to the Commission. Yesterday, Tehelka chief Tarun Tejpal was quizzed with parts of the evidence by Major General Manjit Singh Ahluwalia, one of the two serving officers facing administrative action after being named in the ‘‘defence deal’’ scam.Ahluwalia, Director General, Ordnance and Supply, who has now sought premature retirement, got an admission in court from Tejpal that the portal may have erred in making allegations of bribery against him.After the hearing, Tejpal admitted to The Indian Express: ‘‘If this is case of an error being made in someone’s case, we have no qualms in making amends and apologising for it. This is what I said in court when General Ahluwalia questioned me. The fact is that this was a huge and complicated investigation and some glitches are bound to be there.’’In the transcript of Operation Westend, Ahluwalia is first shown as refusing the Rs 50,000 bribe offered to him but it is stated that this was accepted by him ‘‘later.’’ Court of inquiry, proceedings, accessed by The Indian Express, reveal that Mathew had himself admitted ‘‘refusing’ to give the Rs 50,000 meant for General Ahluwalia to Lt Col Sayal (Retd) before the Court of Inqiry. During his cross-examination of Tejpal, Ahluwalia told him that Tehelka reporter Mathew Samuel had denied paying him any money.This is the first such public admission for Tehelka as far as the role of the defence officers is concerned and assumes significance since Ahluwalia in March 2002 filed a defamation suit against Tehelka, asking for Rs 2 crore in damages.He has now got a reprive since Tejpal has stated that if it was true that his staffer admitted before the Court of Inquiry that the general never demanded money from the Westend team, they were willing to make the necessary amends.Interestingly, while proceedings in the Venkatswami Commission have gathered pace, the Army has been slow with its own own inquiry process.After the court of inquiry report was finalised, three officers were ordered to face court-martial proceedings and two were to face administrative action. Almost a year later, the summary of evidence proceedings against the three indicted officers has not begun in earnest and administrative action against the other two, not yet finalised.
