Patel urges PM to intervene in aviation graft slur

New Delhi: Praful Patel, minister for heavy industry, has asked the prime minister to intervene in an allegation of corruption against him in his previous avatar as civil aviation minister, after a Canadian media report alleged that a $250,000 payoff may have been made to him to swing a security contract from Air India.
In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Patel asked that all records of the issue should be brought out to establish his innocence. "A perusal of Air India's records would demonstrate that these allegations are baseless and false and that there was absolutely no interference whatsoever, at any level from the ministry of civil aviation, or me, personally in this matter. In any event, as stated above, this EOI/tender had been scrapped in the initial stage itself."
The report in Canada's leading daily, Globe and Mail, says an Indian-born Canadian citizen Nazir Karigar has been implicated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, on charges that he had paid Patel a massive bribe, and had conspired with former Mumbai police commissioner Hasan Ghafoor to rig a contract worth $100 million of a facial-recognition system for Air India. It says that Karigar met Patel along with Laxman Dhobole a NCP politician from Pune.
03/02/12 Times of India

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Categories: Air India Feb 2012, Foreign Feb 2012