IAF Officer Dismissed For Dassault ‘Bribegate’

hindustantimes.com

Over two years after an investigation was ordered against him, the IAF has summarily dismissed officer Wing Commander A.K. Thakur after finding him guilty of demanding and accepting bribes during Aero India 2011. The officer was alleged to have arranged “personal benefit” from the configuration and locations of aircraft in the static display area at Yelahanka. It was Dassault Aviation that first complained to the Ministry of Defence after the IAF officer demanded money from the firm. Will update this post later today.

Earlier posts on the incident in March 2011 here, here and here.

14 thoughts on “IAF Officer Dismissed For Dassault ‘Bribegate’”

  1. good riddance. For a deal of $ 20billion the officer just demanded Rs.20,000. Normally in such scenario he should have demanded 1% if not 10%. It reminds me of the judgement where a traffic sergeant got 7 years rigorous imprisonment for taking a bribe of Rs.10.

  2. How can the nation be safe in the hands of people with such low moral standards?? Even if the Chief of Air Force is found to be stealing then who can be trusted? It seems corruption is reaching epidemic proportions in our armed forces where there is no accountability wrt how immense funds are spend in the name of "national security".

    It's also amazing inspite of our forces having very rigorous selection process, it seems very incompetent and corrupt people are rising very fast whereas huge chunk of officers want early retirement.

    If these things are not addressed fast, our nation will face serious threat to it's existence.

  3. After all the free housing, ration, school for kids, medicare apart from the good paychecks with almost every commodity available without tax……some still wish to sell themselves out…and we have to trust them for our security…guys like these bring shame to the entire force….

  4. On one hand we have these kinds of disgraceful episodes by IAF officers and on the other hand we have a IAF Wing Commander who is fighting to get compensation after breaking his back flying shoddy Mig-21s produced by the government farce called HAL.

    Complete and total neglect in the civilian leadership of the armed forces and inability of the paper pushers and the political crooks to recognize the sacrifice of military service is eroding discipline and morale like never before.

    It comical and absurd that in more than 65 years of independence we have rarely had any ex-military officers enter politics despite the fact that the Indian military is one of the largest in the world. That's Indian democracy – where the lowest common denominator fail upwards.

  5. Now the deal has increased from 10.6 billion to 22 plus billion and needless to say a huge payment is going to be made to few people in their carribean bank accounts , they need to be careful as Dassault may expose them easily the way they got rid of thakur who got a token bakshish considering the total amount of the deal.Twenty grand rupees is a very insignificant amount and I feel by doing such stupid thing by Dassault as well as by the officer , rafale is out of the MMRCA race.

  6. In the news the crux of the matter is lost….why is the armed forces going the way the Indian civilian society at large has gone…
    The reason is that the magnificent IAS and the brain dead MoD continue to push and thrust policies that make the armed forces on lines with the police force..a profession that is not conducive for a professional to join. The degrading pay scales, the unethical and morally corrupt formula to continously deny the armed forces their dues including OROP even though India's supreme court has ruled in favor of the veterans. The sadist idea of waiting for veterans to die out rather than grant them their dues from 1986. And lastly making a soldier beg for his disability pension. Even a banana republic respects her soldiers but a supposedly growing economy of a billion people do not. They give their soldiers outdated equipment to fight against countries…now even terrorists have better equipment. Then to not get any backlashes from the chiefs, they will par the Gerneral's air marshall and admirals position that with a Supritendant of Police..they want the chiefs of the armed forces to be a yes man, so that the IAS and MoD due to their ill planning not giving heed to advise like needing Gun locating radars , infrastructures at border , can send their soldiers to unsurmountable tasks increasing high attrition like kargil war…

    The recent uttarakhand floods showed the country a major flaw….that we as Indians have made those who fail in every sector be it education, infrastructure, electricity,basic administaration are leading the country and dictating to the last bastion of India's morality, the armed forces how and what to do…
    The IAS and Indians supreme commander need generals who will not whimper when china tells India that people from A.P are chinese and Pakistan tells iNDIA that soldioers from JnK are Pakistanis….dismissing the hard work these soldiers have put up for their country in a second and at the command of an adversary….a professional soldier wouldnt midn fighting for India..but to die fighting for Indians is another story. Thus we have a bunch of normal Indians ( corrupt people) now trickling in

  7. This is nothing when compared to scam Ardash building scam where 2 former Army Cheif's and 1 Naval Chief squeezed their way into the allotment.

    That having said, there is a certain ground reality that we have to expect, and that is that this does happen in our Armed Forces too.

    But the fact of the matter remains that our Armed Forces still hold high ethos on values and honour. There will be the ocassional defaultors.

    To end, the MoD please get the 126 MMCRA signed and dustesd with. We are all fustrated.

  8. You speak highly of moral standards, yet a huge portion of your population lives under poverty and archaic rules. Bribary follows naturally.

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