A senior naval officer, closely associated with the contentious project to acquire aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov from Russia, which saw several twists and turns, is now in the dock for alleged improper personal conduct, reports Times of India.
The Indian Navy is on the verge of completing a high-level board of inquiry (BoI) against Commodore Sukhjinder Singh for alleged ‘‘loose moral conduct'' while he was posted in Russia from 2005 to 2007.
This came after certain objectionable photographs of Commodore Singh apparently surfaced around a fortnight ago.
The seriousness of the affair, in what could even be a classic ‘‘honey-trap operation'', can be gauged from the fact that Navy chief Admiral Nirmal Verma has already “briefed” defence minister A K Antony about the case.
The BoI headed by a vice-admiral is also probing whether Commodore Singh's “personal transgressions” had any bearing on the Gorshkov deal, which was renegotiated and inked afresh just last month after two-three years of contentious negotiations over the huge cost escalation in the carrier's refit.
India will now have to pay $2.33 billion for the aircraft carrier's refit to Russia and wait till early-2013 to get the delivery.
Commodore Singh was in Russia as the warship production superintendent overseeing the refit of Gorshkov till 2007.
While holding that the BoI report will be out in “a day or two”, Navy officials contended that the likelihood of Commodore Singh “compromising” the Gorshkov price negotiations were “negligible”.
“Preliminary indications are that the involvement has been at a personal level. He was the juniormost of the nine-member commercial negotiations committee,” said an official.
“Moreover, he had already been posted to the quality assurance wing when the actual work on the refit price was done in the latter half of 2009,” he added.
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