Scam? No money changed hands, says Gen Prakash-Tribune News Service :Veteran Prabhjot Singh Chhatwal PLS Retd.

Scam? No money changed hands, says Gen Prakash:Tribune News Service.
Excerpts from the interview
Karan Thapar: So, on the basis of what you have just told me,
is the use of the term, ‘scam’ inappropriate or even misleading?
General Prakash: Absolutely, because the land doesn’t belong
to the Army, no money has exchanged hands. The land remains
with the original owners. So, where is the scam? I just don’t
understand that.
Karan Thapar: Many people say that at the bottom of this whole
sorry affair there is a rivalry or a bitterness between Lt Gen V K
Singh, the present Army Commander of Eastern Command and
who is going to be the next Army Chief, and yourself ?
General Prakash: This is absolutely wrong. We have been
colleagues as young officers, we had our postings together. There
is no question of any rivalry or any bitterness. Even during my
tenure as military secretary, he is one gentleman who had never
recommended any case to me. I am very clear on that.
New Delhi, February 28.The so-called Sukna land scam, which
has rocked the Army establishment for the past few months and
hogged headlines in the media, is just a lot of hot air, claims the
former Military Secretary to the Army Chief, Lt Gen Avadesh
Prakash (Retd). The General, who retired on February 1, happens
to be one of the officers accused of cosying up to a property
developer in Siliguri and of pressurising the Corp Commander to
withdraw his initial objection on security reasons to construction
work outside the Sukna military station in Darjeeling.
Breaking his silence to Karan Thapar in the CNN-IBN programme
Devil’s Advocate on Sunday evening, the retired General claimed
that the 70 acres in question belonged to the Chumta tea estate
and that developers did not need any permission from the Army.
“The local military authorities have no jurisdiction whatsoever
on the land adjacent to their area,” said General Prakash in reply
to a question.
But asked why in that case the promoter had sought a no-objection
certificate from the Corp Commander at Sukna and why the
Commander had turned down the request at first, General Prakash
replied, “May be… they just wanted to have (good) neighbourly
relations with the military authorities there… that’s all I can say.”
He claimed that the Corp Commander’s initial objections were
related to the promoter’s plans to put up malls and resorts on the
land. But when promoters decided to put up a school instead,
General Prakash told Thapar, the Corp Commander ‘must have
changed his decision’.
General Prakash admitted that he knew the promoter, Dilip
Agarwal, and that he accompanied him to meet Maharaja Gaj
Singh of Jodhpur in Jodhpur to discuss the possibility of securing
the franchise of a school to be set up at Sukna. He also admitted
visiting Sukna in the company of the promoter and visiting the
land for ‘five or 10 minutes’. In hindsight, he agreed, the actions
were possibly errors of judgment and improper. But ‘at that point
of time I thought it was a harmless thing to do’, he confessed.
In another candid confession, the retired General admitted to
have taken up the issue of the school with the Corp Commander
at Sukna. But he defended his decision by saying that as Military
Secretary he would receive ‘recommendations’ from colleagues,
senior officers and even retired senior officers, which he would
then pass on to the appropriate officer for consideration. The
officer then would examine the issue, analyse it and put it up for
direction of competent authority, he pointed out before asking,
“Now if a decision is taken by that competent authority, do you
believe that the person who recommended the case is to be
blamed?”
Significantly, however, the retired officer dismissed reports of a
rivalry between him and Lt Gen V K Singh, Chief of the Eastern
Command, who is slated to take over as the Army Chief on March 31.
In fact, General Prakash handed out a compliment to the future
Army Chief when he singled him out for ‘never recommending any
case’ to him.
General Prakash, who was indicted by a Court of Inquiry in
December, had appealed to the Armed Forces Tribunal which
ordered a retrial and gave General Prakash and other accused
officers a chance to cross-examine witnesses, an opportunity they
were denied during the inquiry.
In the interview telecast on Sunday evening, General Prakash,
however, claimed that Army rules did not allow disciplinary
action once administrative action had already been initiated.
He also felt that the Court of Inquiry was not constituted in
accordance with rules and should have been re-constituted.

FULL AND CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF DEVIL'S ADVOCATE WITH LT. GEN. AVADESH PRAKASH - EMBARGOED TILL NOON SUNDAY 28TH :Vet. Prabhjot Singh Chhatwal PLS R

FULL AND CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF DEVIL'S ADVOCATE
WITH LT. GEN. AVADESH PRAKASH - EMBARGOED TILL
NOON SUNDAY 28TH
(Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi, Former VCOAS)
Dear Gen. Oberoi,
I am writing to tell you that on wednesday the 24th our CNN-IBN
programme Devil’s Advocate did an exclusive and extremely
newsworthy interview with the former military secretary, Lt. Gen.
Avadesh Prakash, who, as you know, is at the very centre of the so
called Sukna land scam. This is the first and only interview given
by Lt. Gen. Prakash after maintaining silence for over 3 months.
In addition, he has assured us that he will not give any other
interview or in any other way speak to the press until after this
interview is broadcast by CNN-IBN on sunday night at 8.30 p.m.
The repeats are on monday.
I now enclose the transcript of the interview which is e
mbargoed till noon tomorrow, sunday 28th.
Let me give you the most important points of the interview:-
1. Gen. Prakash says that Court of Inquiry conducted
against him was faulty on many counts. It breached Army
Regulation 518 which determines the membership. It breached
Army Rule 180 which determines how witnesses should be
questioned.
2. The Armed Forces Tribunal has given him partial relief
and although he accepts it, it would have been better for the
Inquiry to be entirely scrapped and re-held with a new presiding
officer and new members. These points are fully explained in
the transcript of the interview. I am only giving you the gist at
this point.
3. Gen. Prakash outlines several reasons why he believes the
Army Chief has not treated him fairly. They are:-
The Chief didn’t apply his mind to Prakash’s reply to the show
cause notice. The Chief barely gave the matter three working
days whereas, earlier, he had spent almost three weeks in
determining how to respond to the Court of Inquiry’s findings.
The Chief was not speaking the full truth when, two weeks earlier
on Devil’s Advocate, he told us that he had ordered disciplinary
action on the basis of Gen. Prakash’s reply to the show cause
notice. Gen. Prakash points out that the letter he received from
the army ordering disciplinary action (dated 29 Jan No.
C/06280/EC/411/AG/DV-2) begins by saying that the show cause
notice is cancelled. Therefore if the notice is cancelled the
reply to the notice cannot be considered. Furthermore at no point
does the letter refer to Prakash’s reply in any shape or form.
In ordering disciplinary action after administrative action had
commenced, Prakash says the Chief is in violation of the well
established and long practiced military policy of 1993. In the
interview Prakash quotes from a letter sent by the Additional
Directorate General (Discipline and Vigilance) of the Adjutant
General’s branch dated 11th May, 1993 no. 32908/AG/DV-1, to
the Head Quarters of all the commands of the army, which
states : “It is clarified that once the competent authority after
having applied his mind to the full facts of the case decides to
initiate administrative action and such action has commenced
… at this stage to revert to disciplinary action is not only
unjustified but also legally unsustainable.”
The communication that disciplinary action would be taken
against him was received by Gen. Prakash at 11 a.m. on the
29th of January, his last working day before retirement. That
also happens to be the date of Beating Retreat. South Block
offices shut down at 1 p.m. thus giving Prakash only two hours
to protest that the disciplinary action was a violation of the
1993 policy. The 30th and 31st were Saturday and Sunday and
therefore holidays. By the 1st Prakash had retired.
4. Prakash explains why the army has no power or
authority to object to the school that was proposed to be built
on the 70 acres of Chumta tea estate which are outside the
military station at Sukna. He explains the critical difference
between a military station and cantonment.
5. Prakash also explains how the Corps Commander at
Sukna first objected to what the developers proposed and
then changed his mind. The reason is that originally they
proposed a shopping mall and resort which the Corps
Commander objected to. When the developers switched to a
school the Corps Commander accepted. Also Prakash points
out that if schools can exist within cantonments in Delhi
then they can easily exist outside a military station at Sukna.
6. Prakash one by one answers the indictments he is
charged with. The details are in the transcript of the
interview I am sending you. But they amount to issues of
impropriety. He does not deny them and, additionally,
accepts that in hindsight they look wrong. At the time,
however, he asserts they were innocent. This is clearly news.
Never before has he accepted that in hindsight they look wrong.
7. Prakash refutes the theory that underlying the Sukna
inquiry is a personality clash or rivalry between him and the
Eastern Army Commander, Lt. Gen. V. K. Singh, who will take
over as Army Chief on 31st March. In fact he has words of
praise for Lt. Gen. V. K. Singh. This too is newsworthy.
8. Finally Gen. Prakash explains why he has not spoken
to the press earlier and why he has chosen to do so now. He
says after the press has called him tainted he feels a need to
defend himself and clear his name.
As I said above, the transcript is enclosed. You will find a
lot of interesting and newsworthy details in the interview
which are not known so far.
With my warm regards,
Yours sincerely,

Abhash Kumar.