NEW DELHI, MARCH 18: Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat had tampered with the Annual Confidential Report of an officer, Defence Minister George Fernandes said in Parliament today. ``It is unprecedented,'' Fernandes added in reply to a question.Fernandes said that it had been brought to the notice of the government that the ex-CNS (ex-Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat) had tampered with the ACR of an officer by crossing out the report of a previous CNS (Admiral V.S. Shekhawat) and superimposing his own adverse remarks.``It is unprecedented for a CNS to alter an assessment report by a previous CNS. the matter is being examined,'' he added.Speaking to The Indian Express Admiral Bhagwat charged Fernandes with misleading Parliament, especially when he was not present to defend himself. ``Not a word has been added or deleted from the concerned officer's ACR. No numerical markings have been changed,'' he said.The matter pertains to the time when Bhagwat was the commander-in-chief (C-in-C) Western Naval Command. ``As thereviewing officer, I made an assessment based on his sea and command performances. Admiral V.S. Shekhawat, the then chief of naval staff (CNS) and the senior reviewing officer wanted to write his own assessment and as the CNS, he is perfectly within his rights to do so,'' Bhagwat said. ``When I came to Delhi, he told me so and I said that I had seen that officer's performance and had no reason to change my report. In his report Admiral Shekhawat subsequently wrote that he had moderated the ACR after talking to the C-in-C (Bhagwat) who now agrees with me,'' Bhagwat added.Subsequently Bhagwat took over as the CNS and Admiral Sushil Kumar was then the Chief of Personnel (COP). ``When the report came to me later, I did not want to set a wrong precedent and left it at that. We put a small sticker (yellow stick-on) on the ACR saying that there was a difference of opinion between the CNS and the C-in-C west. Not a word was added or deleted,'' Bhagwat said.Today he reiterated his demand for a complete probeinto the causes of his sacking. ``Fernandes is misleading the Parliament and telling a blatant lie. Even the Naval Headquarters (NHq) had told the Ministry of Defence (MoD) that the ACR had not been tampered. And yet he says in Parliament that the matter is being examined. There is no question of my tampering anybody's ACR,'' Bhagwat asserted.
