India will suffer by blacklisting defence firms, says Navy Chief

“The point we are making is that there will always be allegations of misconduct in big ticket items deals. If we keep on blacklisting, we will suffer. The way we are looking at things now is that the immediate requirements need to be met otherwise it can be troublesome,” the Admiral said, in response to a question on the Barak system deal.

The Navy Chief said both in the HDW deal as well as the Bofors scandal, allegations of misconduct led to delays and in the end nothing substantial was found.

The statement comes after the Defence Ministry cleared a $120-million deal to procure additional missiles from Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems Ltd that has been named in CBI’s FIR for alleged kickbacks in the Barak missile defence system deal after sitting over the requirement for more than two years.

While a final political decision to deal with the tainted company is yet to be taken by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), the procurement was cleared by MoD’s Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) more than two years after the Navy pressed for urgent missile supplies.