Talking of the most improbable defence purchases, there was a time when the Pentagon was accused of buying gold toilet seats. Now, if reports about purchases of spares for the Indian Navy are true, it turns out the Ministry of Defence has been doing something just as ridiculous. To judge by the prices paid for them, the washers and ball bearings ordered by the MoD in recent years might as well have been made of gold or platinum.The scandalous details of such defence purchases have been revealed in papers filed in court by a serving officer, Rear Admiral S V Purohit, in support of his petition claiming he was treated unjustly by his superiors. Allegedly the purchases of naval spares and equipment were made over a period of many years through well-known agents, permanent features on New Delhi's landscape who wield a great deal of influence in the corridors of power. There has been much talk about similar goings-on before in the media and the cocktail circuit. Former Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat had also warnedabout the influence of powerful arms agents but had not been taken seriously.So exactly what finally provoked the Vajpayee government to order an enquiry into defence deals is not clear. A thorough investigation is long overdue. The Purohit case is probably the first instance when the details of allegedly corrupt deals are down in black and white and presented in a court of law by a very senior member of the armed forces. Also unlike earlier scandals alleged by politicians or the media involving onetime big deals HDW or Bofors or MIG-29s or Sukhoi-30s or T-90 tanks what is emerging here is a long running and continuous operation. It is a saga of exorbitant prices paid even for unwanted equipment, of the failure of checks and balances in the system of defence procurement and of agents and representatives of armaments and equipment companies with incredible access to those in power. The charges suggest that rackets in defence purchases are standard operating procedure.Defence minister GeorgeFernandes has done well to take cognisance, albeit belatedly, of the gold toilet seat phenomenon. But is he serious about an investigation or only going through the motions? The MoD announcement of an investigation into defence deals over the last 15 years and monitoring by the Central Vigilance Commission and Comptroller and Auditor General of all future deals sounds incredibly ambitious, so ambitious in fact that little can be expected to come of it for another 15 years. It is suspiciously like the grandiose promise Fernandes made to reorganise the MoD in three months.Nothing came of that. The government should set priorities for the CVC. If Fernandes wanted to create gridlock he could not have thought of a better way than throwing tens of thousands of deals into the CVC's lap. The search for middlemen in major defence deals in the period after a ban ordered by Rajiv Gandhi came into effect will keep the public entertained for years. What would be more useful though less glamorous detective work howeveris going over the accounts in the purchase sections of the MoD and looking into military warehouses. There might be quite a story there for a start.
