NEW DELHI, India, Aug. 3, Reuter: The Indian government took the first steps today towards a Parliamentary probe into illegal payments made by a Swedish company to secure a billion dollar Howitzer deal.

For the past week the miniscule opposition had managed to block introduction of a motion to set up the inquiry, fearing that its members would be outnumbered on the investigating committee,  which would then become a whitewash.

The opposition has accused senior government figures of accepting kickbacks in the 1.3 billion dollar deal for field guns from Swedish arms maker Bofors and had demanded a full scale debate and equal representation on the committee.

Swedish government radio alleged last April that Bofors had paid commissions worth 40 million dollars in connection with Sweden’s biggest export order signed last year.

Defense Minister Krishna Chandra Pant, who brought the motion before the House, blamed Bofors today for concealing information on commissions it had’ paid, adding that the government had made vigorous efforts to uncover the truth.

He said Bofors had pledged commercial confidentially but the government had again asked it to disclose the names of those who had been paid commissions.

When the scandal first broke, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi refused to take cognizance of it, saying Bofors had agreed to have no middlemen and that no commissions had been paid.

But newspapers kept hitting at him and when, under pressure, he asked Sweden to investigate the allegations the Swedish Audit Bureau reported back that huge payments had been made in connection with the deal.

Pant made no effort to deny outright, as Gandhi did, that a commissions had been paid. But he refused an opposition request that the inquiry should include alleged commissions paid in connection with the 1981 acquisition of West German submarines.

“A roving inquiry will have an adverse impact on the morale of the defense forces and thereby endanger defense preparedness”, he said.

Gandhi suffered a further setback last April when his defense minister Vishwanath Pratap Signh quit after ordering an inquiry into the submarine deal.

Previously as Finance Minister he had led a crusade against corruption and attempted to investigate Indian businessmen.

The arms scandals, the worst to rock the country since independence in 1947, have dented Gandhi’s image as the “Mr. Clean”

Article extracted from this publication >>  August 7, 1987