NEW DELHI: Samir V. Kamat is being faulted by some within the DRDO for ‘continuing to sit on the findings of BrahMos’ own internal committee’.
In the first week of September 2022, a three-member Fact Finding and Investigation Committee (FFIC) that was constituted in January 2022, submitted its report to the present Defence and Research Development Organization (DRDO) chief Samir V. Kamat.
The said committee was formed on the directions of scientist Atul Dinkar Rane, who was appointed as the chief executive officer and managing director of BrahMos airspace on 20 December 2021 after his predecessor Dr Sudhir Kumar Mishra had retired on 30 November 2021.
While taking over the charge from Mishra, Rane was also given the details of the documents, both sensitive and general in nature, as a part of “handing over”. However, on 28 December, Mishra returned a set of “secret” documents back to BrahMos headquarters, which were not in the list of documents that Mishra had shown to be in his possession during the handing over process earlier.
This action prompted Rane to constitute the three-member committee to find out if any other sensitive documents were unaccounted for and if any other things which should not have been taken out from the premises of BrahMos were taken out.
During their probe, the committee members found that from 27 November till 30 November, Mishra had engaged private packers and movers who packed 40 cartons that contained stuff lying in his office. The statement of the packers and movers revealed that 20 paintings, 8 cartons of books, medals in 10 cartons, 10 cartons of liquor amounting to 100 bottles and 8 cartons of blankets, bedsheets and towels were allegedly taken from the BrahMos Headquarters to the residence of Mishra at Vasant Kunj. The Sunday Guardian has accessed the statement of the transporter.
No inventory register of these things was maintained, but the committee found videos and stills of the cartons from the cameras that were installed at the entry and exit of X-ray machines.
When the committee sought to check the CCTV footage of these three days, it found that footage of the corresponding days were missing. As a result of these lapses, Lieutenant Colonel R.S. Suri (Retd), the Chief General Manager (CGM) responsible for data security, document handling, and outgoing materials at BrahMos Aerospace, was transferred to Hyderabad, but he chose to resign.
The committee also found that Mishra was still in the possession of over Rs 7 lakh (depreciated value) worth laptops, desktops and mobile phones and inventories that belonged to BrahMOs. When he was asked about it, he sent a cheque of Rs 1.71 lakh on 23 March to BrahMOs in lieu of the stuff that was lying in his possession.
The then Personal Assistant of Mishra told the committee members that he took a lot of documents outside the headquarters after photo copying them. Such a claim remains unverified.
However, the committee members decided to end their probe abruptly after they found INSAS guns, rocket launchers, ammunition and live bombs inside the BrahMos campus. They decided that the matter was now a case for the probe of specialized agencies like the National Investigation Agency.
The said report was then submitted to DRDO chief Kamat through BrahMos chief in September 2022. Kamat ordered that the said arms and ammunition should be sent to Armaments Research & Development Establishment (ARDE) for further investigation.
Till now no action has been reported as being taken on these series of lapses that occurred under the watch of Kamat and Mishra. Kamat, on his part, is being faulted by some within the DRDO for “continuing to sit on these findings of BrahMos’ own internal committee”.
The entire incident would have continued to be unknown if Mishra had not recently applied for a non executive advisory consultancy position (Raja Ramanna Chair) in DRDO.
Kamat after receiving the application from Mishra wrote to BrahMos seeking their suggestions on his application, it was then that the officials in the defence establishment and Kamat were made to recall the findings of the three-member committee, which the DRDO chief has allegedly refused to act on for almost 20 months now. Sources said B.P. Sharma, who is the Chairman of Recruitment & Assessment Centre (RAC) in DRDO, has refused to move ahead with the application of Mishra in wake of the findings of the said committee.
Mishra on his part has called the revival of this entire matter as a “malicious campaign and propaganda” against him by some “vested interests” which stems from his application for the consultancy position (Chair) in DRDO. Mishra has said that he retired more than two years ago from DRDO and if there was any security breach then why it was not flagged and reported earlier. According to him, as per protocol, he had handed over all the documents including files marked “classified” and “confidential” to his successor in the presence of the company secretary. He said that on the day of his retirement he did carry back his “personal belongings”—the souvenirs given to him during his seven-year tenure as DG, DRDO; from 2014 to 2021, the degrees and honours he had obtained and other personal belongings in five to six boxes.
While responding to these developments, DRDO had said that it had “received a complaint against Dr Sudhir Kumar Mishra, Ex CEO & MD of BrahMos Aerospace. Based upon the complaint, a Fact Finding Inquiry Committee was formed by Secretary DDR&D and Chairman DRDO. However the committee didn’t find any evidence to back the allegation levied.”
However, sources aware of the matter said that the inquiry committee was not formed on the basis of a complaint, but an internal concern raised by the top officers of BrahMOs. Secondly, the fact finding committee had reportedly found multiple lapses, including the presence of unexplained arms and ammunition inside the campus.
A section of DRDO officials said it was a failure of Kamat to “sit on this entire findings” that included unexplained presence of ammunition, failure of working CCTVs which indicates major lapses in the organization.
Messages sent to Mr Kamat seeking his response on the matter including the inaction on the findings of the committee elicited no response till the time the report went to press.