IAF officer faces court-martial for taking 'bribe'

New Delhi: IAF is likely to court-martial Wing Commander A K Thakur, a transport aircraft pilot who was allegedly caught while demanding a Rs 20,000 bribe from officials of a French aviation company at the Aero-India show in Bangalore in February.
Sources say this comes after the court of inquiry (CoI) against Wing Commander Thakur found him prima facie guilty of demanding the bribe from French company Dassault Aviation for allotting ''a more advantageous position'' for its aircraft in the ''static'' aircraft display section at the airshow.
In the military legal system, disciplinary action in the form of a court-martial is taken after a summary of evidence is recorded, somewhat akin to the framing of charges in the civil system, following a CoI. The court-martial is the actual trial to prove if a person is guilty or not of the charges against him.
There is, however, talk that the entire episode is ''much more murky'' than just a Rs 20,000 bribe being demanded by one of the IAF officers deputed to oversee the arrangements for Aero-India.
Dassault Aviation's Rafale fighter, after all, is one of the six contenders in the hotly-contested race to bag India's gigantic $10.4-billion project for the acquisition of 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) for IAF.
08/04/11 Times of India

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Categories: Foreign Apr 2011, Indian Aviation- In General Apr 2011