Despite repeated requests from the government,De La Rue,the British currency paper manufacturer,has claimed privilege in the matter of its internal investigation report on how the watermarked paper supplied to India failed quality parameters. The company subsequently sent only a summary report (dated October 21,2010) called India paper. That report,available with The Indian Express,reveals some startling facts. One,that the board of De La Rue had established that some of their employees had falsified test certificates of currency paper manufactured for the Reserve Bank of India and,two,that the matter was serious enough for the company to have reported it to British law- enforcement agencies. They clarified,however,that they were confident none of their employees received any direct pecuniary or non-pecuniary benefits. De La Rues probe was conducted by a special investigation team in which external legal advisers were given unrestricted access to employees,files and computers. They tested the July 2010 consignment which was not shipped to India as well as currency paper held in stock by BRBNMPL (Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Limited). The teams analysed the quality certificates of the July 2010 consignments as well as certificates from previous consignments to come to the conclusion that the testing,sampling and calculation of results were not in accordance with contract. De La Rue,in its summary report,admitted the following: Testing of currency paper before July 2010 was not in strict accordance with the terms of the contract with BRBNMPL and,in particular,samples of paper were selected from paper in the course of production and not selected from every 1,000th (finished) ream. Such tests,the company admitted,would be unreliable. Contractual requirement that the average of the test results from finished reams must comply with the specifications was not fully appreciated by employees involved. So it wasnt possible to establish beyond doubt the extent to which paper supplied in the past was out of specification. Finance Minister Pranab Mukerjee is known to have quickly ordered a fact-finding mission headed by diplomats posted in London. On receipt of their report,on September 8,2010,he approved a proposal to suspend supplies from the company. And on October 19,the Home Ministry denied security clearance to De La Rue for participating in future tenders.
