Rear Admiral moves court over delay in promotion

Rear Admiral moves court over delay in promotion
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NEW DELHI, JULY 9: Rear Admiral J.S. Purohit has moved the Delhi High Court alleging that the government was deliberately delaying his promotion to the vice-admiral's rank on the basis of a CBI inquiry against him after he pointed out large-scale corruption in the purchase of Navy equipment.

Purohit's application said the government is yet to file a reply to his petition filed in January though it had assured the court that a post of vice-admiral would be kept vacant till the disposal of his petition.

``The conduct of the Union of India in deliberately seeking to delay matters is apparent in an inquiry into the charges contained in an anonymous letter to the CBI in March 1998 on the basis of which a promotion has been kept pending,'' the petition said.

Purohit, the seniormost Rear Admiral in the logistic cadre of the Navy, claimed that after he had pointed out corruption in the defence deals, vested interests had engineered the letter. Chief Vigilance Commissioner N. Vittal has recently said that he would probe into the allegations made by Purohit.

Purohit said he had submitted a letter to the Chief of Naval Staff on January 28, 1999 after Vishnu Bhagwat was sacked as Admiral to clear the government's misconception that he was in Bhagwat's camp. ``To show to those in the government unfavourably inclined towards him that he was neither in the Vishnu Bhagwat camp nor a dishonest man, the petitioner collated data and projected it to the Chief of Naval Staff,'' the petition said.

``In the letter, the petitioner traced the course of commercialisation of procurement of spares from a purely government to government supply from Western and Russian sources and indicated how vested interests had stepped in,'' the petition said.

Purohit alleged that the Naval headquarters took no action regarding the fraud as well as the infringement of orders in continuing to deal with ship dealers, m/s Makalu in particular. ``No action was taken on the report that undue favours were shown to a cartel of m/s Machinery Sales Corporation, m/s Makalu and m/s H.C. Supplies by the authorities at Vizag as this would have disapproved the case against the petitioner by exposing the real culprits,'' Purohit said. He said a deliberate choice was, therefore, made to persecute him rather than probing the bunglings in the defence deals.

``It is astonishing that a signed report from a senior officer in the service is persistently ignored while an anonymous letter is pursued with zeal and perseverance,'' Purohit said. He said he had examined the data and was convinced that favours were made to these firms at the expense of the Navy.

Purohit said that despite being cleared by two high-powered investigating committees, he was being discriminated against on the basis of an anonymous letter. A systematic campaign of vilification against him was carried out in the Press by the Ministry of Defence sources after Vishnu Bhagwat was sacked and despite representation, no steps were taken to put the record straight, he said.

``Humiliation and distrust erodes the honour and dignity of the Defence services and this is exactly what the civil servants of the Ministry of Defence have attempted and achieved since Independence,'' Purohit said.