Inquiry finds funds misuse by skydiving team of Navy

Sources said a decision on whether to proceed with a court martial against the two officers is likely to be taken within a few weeks but the inquiry has enough damning evidence to proceed with punitive action.

The detailed inquiry report,which contains statements by woman skydiver Shital Mahajan who is a recipient of the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award and findings of the investigating team,has been referred to the Navy’s Vigilance department and is being studied by various other departments.

The voluminous report,sources say,points to instances of financial impropriety but it would take a military court to decide whether the officers actually embezzled funds that were earmarked for adventure sports.

The Vigilance department of the Navy is now scrutinising bank account details and other financial transactions of the two officers to establish whether there is ground to proceed with a court martial.

As first reported in this newspaper,the high profile sports skydiving training team of the Navy had courted controversy after an inquiry was set up against two of its top officers. The officers were being investigated for misusing adventure sports funds for personal purposes,including an extended vacation in Paris.

Amongst the charges being probed was embezzlement of government funds during a visit to Australia for a skydiving event,an unauthorised stay in Paris during the course of an event on government money and of duping Mahajan of money she had collected to make a record-breaking jump over the South Pole in 2006.

Mahajan confirmed that she had recorded her statement for the inquiry and had sent across audio recordings of her conversations with the two officers. The case had shocked the Navy especially as the skydiving team had earned laurels across the world by carrying out several record-breaking jumps.