An Indian Air Force band plays before a Rafale fighter at the Air Force Day Parade at Hindon on October 08, 2020 | Photo: Saurabh Joshi/StratPost
The French website also reported the existence of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Dassault Aviation (DA) and its future Indian partners, the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group, which it called ‘a document setting out broad outlines of an agreement’.
Mediapart reported that the Memorandum of Understanding was concluded between the two industrial groups on March 26, 2015, preceding the announcement of the order by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to France on April 10, 2015.
The website reported, ‘The MoU prudently allowed for a “possible joint venture”. It would include “program and project management”, “research and development”, “design and engineering”, “assembly and manufacture”, “maintenance” and “training”.’
This, as it turned out, came not a day too soon. The next day might have been too late.
The next day, the French bid to sell any Rafale fighters to India — either as the 126 MMRCA or as part of any other order, would officially be declared dead with no hope of recovery.
As reported by StratPost in 2019, the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India into the order for 36 Rafale fighters included the findings of a report submitted by a defence ministry team to review the award of L1, or lowest technically qualified bid, to the French fighter for the Indian Air Force tender for 126 Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA).
Former Defence Minister A.K. Antony ordered the review in June 2012 in the previous, UPA government, under whose tenure the L1 award was decided by the IAF and the defence ministry.
According to the CAG report, the review team submitted it’s report on March 27, 2015 — evidently, the day after DA and Reliance concluded the MoU.
[stextbox id=’stratpost’ caption=’Chronology of Events ‘ collapsing=”false” collapsed=”false” shadow=”false” color=’000000′ ccolor=’FFFFFF’ bcolor=’000000′ bgcolor=’FFFFFF’ cbgcolor=’000000′]
August 28, 2007: 126 MMRCA tender contest begins
April 27, 2011: Shortlist of Eurofighter and Rafale announced
January 31, 2012: Dassault Rafale declared winning L1 bid
June 2012: Defence Minister A.K. Antony orders review of L1 award
May 26, 2014: NDA government comes to power
March 25, 2015: Dassault Aviation Chairman Eric Trappier: The deal to purchase 126 Rafales is now “95 percent completed”.
March 26, 2015: MoU between DA and Reliance
March 27, 2015: L1 review report submitted
April 08, 2015: Then Foreign Secretary Dr. S. Jaishankar (current MEA): “In terms of Rafale, my understanding is that there are discussions under way between the French company, our Ministry of Defence, the HAL which is involved in this. These are ongoing discussions.”
April 10, 2015: PM Modi announces order for 36 Rafale fighters
[/stextbox]The review team report demolished the case for the French aircraft to have been legitimately selected the L1 bid.
Recapping the CAG’s report:
“The (L1 review) team in its report submitted on 27 March 2015 concluded as follows:
• At the stage of TEC (Technical Evaluation Committee), the proposal of M/s DA was non-compliant to the RFP with respect to the ASQR (Air Staff Qualitative Requirements), Warranty clause and option clause. The proposal of the vendor should have been rejected at the TEC stage itself.
• The acceptance of additional commercial proposal after bid submission date for capabilities, which were already prescribed in the RFP, was unprecedented and against the canons of financial propriety.
• The price bid of M/s DA, was non-compliant as it was incomplete and not in the prescribed format.
• The L-1 sub-committee had filled up the incomplete entries by culling out figures given elsewhere under different headings of the price bid. While doing so, the members of the committee made certain assumptions. Calculation of L1 based on incomplete commercial proposal and based on assumption was incorrect and as such determination of L1 was faulty and not as per laid down procedure
• M/s DA is not the L-1 and therefore contract cannot be concluded with them.
• The proposal of vendor, M/s EADS (Eurofighter) was also not compliant with the RFP.
Therefore, the committee recommended in March 2015 that the RFP for the procurement of MMRCA may be withdrawn.”
Giving this damning indictment, it is open to question if a case could have been made for even the subsequent, smaller order for 36 Rafale fighters. As it turned out, fortunately for Dassault Aviation, the contents of the L1 review report have never been disclosed to the public by the defence ministry to date.
In any case, the defence ministry was apparently aware that the findings of the review team could present problems for the order for 36 off-the-shelf Rafale fighters. It was concerned enough to pretend the report didn’t exist, even before Parliament.
In response to a question asked by the late opposition Congress Party MP Ahmed Patel on July 30, 2015, who asked if the IAF’s tender for 126 MMRCA had been withdrawn, the then defence minister, the late Manohar Parrikar replied in the affirmative, adding at the end, “In this multi-vendor procurement case, the Rafale aircraft met all the performance characteristics stipulated in the Request for Proposal (RFP) during the evaluation conducted by Indian Air Force.”
This was clearly not the case. The defence ministry’s own report, which recommended the withdrawal of the RFP, determined that ‘the proposal of M/s DA was non-compliant to the RFP with respect to the ASQR (Air Staff Qualitative Requirements)’.
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