NEW DELHI, JAN 1: Defence Minister George Fernandes today said sacked Navy chief Vishnu Bhagwat had been displaying ``disturbing tendencies'' for over a year and had ``threatened'' his successor Admiral Sushil Kumar with court martial without any valid reasons.Speaking to Doordarshan, Fernandes said that despite Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's intervention, Bhagwat kept on defying authority.Fernandes said that Admiral Sushil Kumar, the senior-most serving officer today, is a highly decorated naval officer. ``He was in the normal course required to hold an operational command so that he would be in the reckoning to become chief. The matter was taken up by the ministry for giving him a command. The command was not given,'' he said.Bhagwat, in fact, threatened then vice admiral Sushil Kumar with court martial for having represented to the naval headquarters for a posting in an operational command.``I was told that Kumar had been representing to the naval chief since July orally and from August toOctober, six times in writing,'' he said. ``And when the statutory complaint came to me on the 24th of November, Bhagwat telephoned Kumar and told him that he will be court-martialled and he should know where he stands,'' he added.The Defence Minister said that in panic, Kumar called him up. ``He telephoned me on November 27 and told me that `I am going to be court-martialled, what am I to do?' I said I am still alive, don't worry,'' Fernandes said.In reply to a question, Fernandes said that all efforts had been made to resolve the issue amicably. He said that the Prime Minister, the principal secretary and even a senior leader of the main Opposition party spoke to Bhagwat. But nothing worked.``When this kind of face-off began, there was no formal representation. No meeting was sought. It started appearing in the newspapers. A leader in the main Opposition party offered to speak to Bhagwat. He spoke to him and after 72 hours, said nothing is working,'' he said. ``I would have been most happy to helpin sorting out the matter,'' he added.On Bhagwat's wife Niloufer's charges that the decision was communally motivated and the result of a nexus between arms dealers, politicians and bureaucrats, Fernandes said that the sacked Navy chief had never informed him either orally or in writing about such a nexus but had only ``confided in his wife'' about arms dealers and peddlers being in league with bureaucrats and all sorts of officials in the Navy.Fernandes made it clear that the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet is the final authority. ``I have the written advice of not one but three pages from the Attorney-General to that effect. Secondly, the former Navy chief seems to have a very convenient memory. In 1990, he accused the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) of being a dictator and insisted that it was the ACC, the Cabinet, the Defence Minister and the Prime Minister whose decision was final and irrevocable. These are his words, sworn affidavit in the Mumbai High Court,'' he said.Referring to a petitionfiled in the Mumbai High Court by Bhagwat in 1991, Fernandes said the petitioner had then made ``all kinds of allegations against the Prime Minister, who was the Defence Minister also, the Defence Secretary, the Principal Secretary and officials of the Navy.''``The case was not carried to its logical conclusion. Bhagwat got a promotion and the petition was withdrawn. But what happened to the arms dealers and corrupt people who had occupied senior bureaucratic positions?'' he asked.
