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R.K.
GUPTA: How much commission do we pay to each person? The
complete equipment bill is 12 to 15 per cent. But 50 per cent
they take back.
TEHELKA: Okay.
R.K. GUPTA: With Russians that is the practice. They
take back 50 per cent.
TEHELKA: Take back?
R.K. GUPTA: They have Swiss accounts or other accounts,
wherever…they channelise and all.
TEHELKA: The Russian accounts, everything, is in dollars
or Indian currency?
R.K. GUPTA: In dollars.
[Pause]
R.K. GUPTA: For our expenses, they were opening LCs
for us.
TEHELKA: Okay.
R.K. GUPTA: They will import something from here to
their country at a little higher price so that our margin
is…
*
* *
Of
course, R. K. Gupta wasn't the only middleman in the Sukhoi
aircraft
deal. A mysterious gentleman by the name of Sudeep Choudhary
was
the main broker in the Rs. 36,000 crore fighter aircraft
deal. More of
him later. Our next stop will be Mohinder Singh Sahni,
Consul General
of Belize and resident of Vasant Vihar. Pant takes us
to him.
In the beginning Pant
talks about the deals Sahni has done. |
PANT: …six crores that was…924 crore. That was the
biggest deal he made.
TEHELKA: 924 crore that was the Czechslovakian deal.
PANT: Czechslovakian deal. Skoda.
MOHINDER PAL SAHNI: Pipeline and other things.
TEHELKA: Pipeline…it is a defence deal?
PANT: No, pipeline. Petroleum and Natural Gas and all…
TEHELKA: That is what that Oman, that Oman, that pipeline
of…
PANT: Gandhidham, he used to go. GAIL, Gas Authority
Of India. He used to go to Gandhidham, Gujarat, Jaipur and
all those places.
TEHELKA: He is going to be, paid for also in that dealing.
PANT: 924, 26 crore only was there.
TEHELKA: This man was the mediator?
PANT: Haan, he is the man basically, who got
it done.
TEHELKA: Okay.
PANT: That's how he got the money for his farmhouses
and all this everything. Twenty crore was paid.
TEHELKA: Twenty-four crore.
*
* *
A
brief digression to Colonel Berry (Retd.) whom Sahni uses
as a consultant
for some projects. Berry, here, is in the process of cutting
Sahni off from his
deal with West End, hoping instead to handle the entire
West End project himself. Here Berry talks about some
of the deals where Sahni has been
a middleman. While Sahni is currently concentrating on
Russian deals,
he has also tied up for border fencing work using contacts
in the Home Ministry. |
TEHELKA: You have any idea, about recently, how many
deals he has struck?
LT.COL. BERRY: Must be around two-three deals.
TEHELKA: Big deal?
LT.COL. BERRY: I suppose, because I have not been involved
on those. I don't know. Because the naval and air force, yes,
naval particularly.
TEHELKA: Submarine deals?
LT.COL. BERRY: Not submarine, connected with submarine.
TEHELKA: With whom?
LT.COL. BERRY: I don't know the name of the company.
Some KGB. Not KGB, KBG. Something like that, some Russian
company only.
TEHELKA: It's for the Navy?
LT.COL. BERRY: Haan, that he has.
TEHELKA: That is a weapon or something else?
LT.COL. BERRY: It is a system, complete system.
TEHELKA: He was the middleman?
LT.COL. BERRY: Haan, yeah.
TEHELKA: He played the key role?
LT.COL. BERRY: Key role or sometimes luck plays the
key role.
TEHELKA: But he succeeded?
LT.COL. BERRY: He succeeded.
TEHELKA: Okay, then any other deals he struck?
LT.COL. BERRY: Not my knowledge, but I believe long
back he has done some deal in tyres and thing like that.
TEHELKA: For whom? MoD? Defence?
LT.COL. BERRY: For air force I think.
TEHELKA: Air force? That is what kind of tyre?
LT.COL. BERRY: Hmm.
TEHELKA: Tyres means what kind of tyre.
LT.COL. BERRY: These air force tyres.
TEHELKA: Fighter, fighter tyres?
LT.COL. BERRY: Yeah, it is a big thing. I mean, volume-wise.
TEHELKA: That's also from Russia?
LT.COL. BERRY: Yes, his base is Russia.
TEHELKA: Not, in the European countries?
LT.COL. BERRY: He is trying to build up in Germany,
but slowly, slowly.
TEHELKA: He's not succeed?
LT.COL. BERRY: You see, nothing succeeds like success.
TEHELKA: Exact, that is true. I want to know something
about Sahni, that is what I am asking you, and what other
deals you know.
LT.COL. BERRY: I don't know any other particular things.
TEHELKA: He told me that he is planning to, he is on
the way of T-90 tanks.
LT.COL. BERRY: He is trying, yes, let's see whether
he succeeds or not.
TEHELKA: No, that day I saw some of the Russian was
sitting with him.
LT.COL. BERRY: Hmm.
TEHELKA: Russian was sitting with him.
LT.COL. BERRY: There are plenty of Russians…keep coming.
That there will be no dearth of people coming here.
TEHELKA: Okay.
LT.COL. BERRY: That is not to be taken as a whether
he can do your work.
In a subsequent meeting with Sahni when West End was lobbying
with
him to become their middleman, he sets up an internal
evaluation
meeting of West End's products, comparing them with the
specifications
of their competitors. Sahni himself has more than a dozen
top
ranked army officers on his consultancy rolls. |
LT.COL. BERRY: Whatever he is saying is right that
way and things are workable.
MOHINDER PAL SAHNI: If we put a political pressure…
LT.COL. BERRY: Exactly, exactly. We'll talk about these
things tomorrow. First you talk.
MOHINDER PAL SAHNI: That talks will be done, that is
our internal matter. Your technical advice is that this product
can beat others.
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