The CBI has begun an in-house probe into pay-off allegations concerning a $100 million Air India contract in 2007 when Mr Praful Patel was Civil Aviation Minister, a charge which he has rubbished as “baseless and preposterous“.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had approached the probe agency through diplomatic channels informing them about the scandal and allegations made against Indo-Canadian businessman Mr Nazir Karigar who claimed that he had paid a bribe of $250,000 to an aide of Mr Patel, official sources said on Sunday. The contract has since been scrapped.
The CBI had recently asked the Canadian authorities for a statement from Mr Karigar, who, according to a Canadian newspaper, was to be prosecuted by the authorities in Toronto under the newly-legislated Foreign Public Officials Act.
Air India had floated a tender in 2006 for computerised passenger face recognition biometrics system and the businessman was representing CrypoMetrics company.
Mr Karigar had claimed that he had met Mr Patel through former Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor and allegedly paid the bribe amount to the minister’s aide for pushing the contract in favour of his company.
The contract was, however, scrapped after internal objections by officials of the Air India and Civil Aviation Ministry.
The written statement from Mr Karigar would be helpful to the CBI in carrying out further inquiry into the case, the sources said.
The alleged bribe scandal came to light after a report in this regard was published in a leading Canadian newspaper Globe and the Mail which also named Mr Patel, now a Heavy Industries Minister, as an intended beneficiary of a $250,000 bribe supposed to have been given by Mr Karigar.
A final call about registering a case would be taken by the CBI after receiving a written statement from Mr Karigar, the sources said.
Mr Patel was not available for comments today but earlier he had written to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh terming the allegations as “baseless and preposterous”.