 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I am Paranjoy Guha Thakurtha and today we are going to discuss the new disclosures that have come in the Rafale fighter aircraft scandal. These disclosures came in the form of a report that was published in the wire based on documents obtained from India and from France which shows that the French aviation company Dassault Aviation had invested roughly 40 million euros in a company which is part of the Anil Ambani Group and this resulted in this company in the Anil Ambani Group called Reliance Airport Developers Limited obtaining a profit of 284 crore rupees. Predictably this disclosure has raised a huge political storm. The opposition has been shouting that these disclosures show that fingers are pointing directly at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. To discuss the implications of this article which was jointly written by Rohini Singh and Ravi Nair. Let me welcome Ravi to the studio. Thank you Paranjoy. For the benefit of our viewers Ravi you have you're an independent writer and almost a year ago on the 14th of November 2017 you wrote about the Rafale deal in Jantaka reporter and earlier you worked in the corporate sector. Can you summarize what is the new information that you have disclosed in this article that you've written together with Rohini Singh and why is it significant these new disclosures? Till now though everyone knew there was something fishy about this deal nothing was there no money trail I mean I shouldn't say it's a money trail but any kind of monetary transaction what happened which was not there in public domain. So this is the ever first time that is coming out. There are two things to it the first one is Daso has a joint venture with Reliance so the money didn't come to that JV or the company which is part of that JV. What is the name of that joint venture? It's called Daso Reliance Aerospace Limited DRAL. The money didn't come there this company where the money has come is a different company. It's a different company called Reliance Airport Developers Limited. The story behind that company is Maharashtra government allocated five local airports to this particular company in 2009. Actually they were in an auction that time itself it there was a lot of noise came out because the bed Reliance won the bed for 63 crore rupees and the total land area of these airports around 603 hectares then that the government said there were eight bidders and they were the highest so it gone to them. Fine for the next six years nothing happened in this company. In 2015 the current Maharashtra government BJP government the Indra Fartnoy's government they said they want to take these airports back because no action has been done. In other words they were not happy with the progress that had been made by this Anil Ambani group company. Am I correct? Can what draw such a conclusion? In a way it should be otherwise why should government say that they have to take it back. All right please continue. So somewhere they don't know what happened after that. After few months in 2015 the same agency allocated further land to another group company of Anil Ambani that was Reliance Aero Structural Limited which is a partner which is a partner with Deso and that JV. Ravi let me interrupt you. In your article you have written that RADL Reliance Airport Developers Limited had posted losses of 10.35 lakhs in the financial year that ended in March 2017 on revenues of 6 lakh rupees. And in the previous year it had no revenues and had losses of about 9 lakhs. Yet this particular company RADL it has gained a lot because Reliance Infrastructure which is another Anil Ambani company which sold its shares in this company which is its subsidiary ended up selling its shares at a premium. How did they arrive? How did Desolt arrive at a premium for these shares? It's an unlisted company. I look at what's a premium that's an important thing. Exactly that's where the doubt is why should a company like Deso invest in such a company which was not operational which was where the government itself asked to give it back the assets what government has given for a 70 year lease. They want to take it back in six years because it was not operational. They did no development at all and Deso decided to invest in that particular company. You are saying that Deso Aviation's annual report for 2017 mentions that it acquired non-listed securities including a 34.7% equity participation in RADL Reliance Airport Developers Limited and the question everybody is asking why should Deso spend this kind of money? Almost 40 million euros. Deso should answer that. So what they have to answer? Deso must answer that. See it sits almost nearly 24 hours now since article is out. It's 22 hours till now neither Reliance nor Deso responded. We sent mail to them. We asked for the response before coming it out. We didn't get any response. Ravi in a recent interview to the Economic Times the Chief Executive Officer of Deso Mr. Eric Trappier he has gone on record saying 70 crore rupees has been invested in Deso Reliance Aerospace Limited the earlier joint venture. And 49% is the stake of Deso in that earlier joint venture RDRAL. Now that means this is over and above the money they have already put in. He didn't say anything. First of all he just said one part of it. When he said 70 crore he said it's 70. That's how he said it in the interview. In that 70 CR that's a total capital as of now and Reliance contribution is only land. So in a sense are you suggesting that Deso has paid for everything not just the land but all the facilities so exactly is that the implication exactly. Now if you look at the sequence of events the timeline of events Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the referral deal on the 10th of April 2015. In July in that same year Reliance Aero Structure applies to the Maharashtra Airport Development Council for land at the Special Economic Zone in Mihand. Correct? This is in Nagpur in Maharashtra and it gets 289 acres in August that year for 63 crore a piece. Then it says it'll take less land. Government allotted 289 acres but the company didn't take 289 acres they have taken only 104 acres. And it missed several payment deadlines. Yes many. Now Reliance Aero Structure was incorporated on the 24th of April 2015 a few days before the oh sorry a few days after after two weeks after two weeks after Prime Minister Modi announced the deal. Now everybody's asking a question. Why did Deso do all this? I mean was there some sort of compulsion on the part of this French company which had earlier the same Mr. Trapia had said that 95 percent of its deal earlier with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited had been completed in the presence of the head of the Indian Air Force and the head of Hindustan Aeronautics and suddenly this deal is gone. Now it was actually in the presence of Indian Ambassador to France then senior officials I don't think the IAFG force there but senior officials were there. I stand corrected. So there were senior officials of the government of India and the Indian Air Force. HL and IAFG. And Hindustan Aeronautics. Yes. In their presence he said 95 percent of the deal is done. Right. And just less than three weeks later this deal is called off. See that sequence it's very interesting. Okay. On that particular day there was one company Adani Group. Adani Group ended into a defense business by incorporating a company. Adani Defense Technology is limited. Three days later Reliance Defense Limited was launched. It's incorporated. Then the reliable sources informed and it was well published by renowned defense analyst Ajay Shukla. He published it long back that information is correct. We verified it ourselves that information is correct because the then defense minister who was on the way to airport he was Mr. Manohar Parika. He had to go to Goa his home state. He was on the way to airport. He had been called to PMO. And to PMO he has been informed that the deal that the then ongoing deal MMRCA deal for 126 aircrafts. MMRCA stands for medium multi role combat aircraft. Yeah. So almost everyone knows that. I mean those terms are used so much. So every layman know that now. So he has been informed that the then ongoing negotiation for that 126 aircrafts will not be going further. The RFP the request to a proposal and the bid for that vote these companies submitted will be called off. Okay. Now we at the end of the article that appears in the wire which bears Rohini Singh and your byline. It says that the initial version of the article the Euro figure corresponding to Oh many people ask it's actually a mistake was mistakenly stated as four million. It was actually a typo. It was actually a typo at the desk. It was actually a typo at the desk. What happened to us. See we got the documents in our hand by round. We were working at working on it. You know that there are many aspects to this. So we work on that. We got the final document which we had the information but still we wanted to have the documents and we wanted to verify it. All right. So when we did it we had you saying it's a typo graphic. It's just a typo graphic. I come back to the question I started with how significant is the information that you have disclosed. That's big. It's big. That's really big. We Congress President Rahul Gandhi has said everybody the fingers are pointing at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. What do you have to say to what that's a political question for which I will not answer. Okay. Okay. I don't want to comment on the political stuff of it but the significance of if you ask me the significance of this particular transaction is the same thing which you asked me. That is why did the so picked up 34.7% stake in this company. In this company. Almost a debt company. It's a debt huge premium. Yes. And the premium is more than 100%. 100 times. 100 times. Sorry. It's 100 times. Yeah. So 1000%. Yes. So why that is the big mystery. Exactly. Why. And after that it's the transaction happened sometime last year. And if you look at the annual report of Reliance. Okay. Reliance infrastructure. Yeah. Reliance. That's a parent company. That's a parent company. No. It's all subsidiaries. It's put as a note at the lower point in a very miniscule paragraph. A few lines. You mentioned that. So it's buried in note number 43 under the exceptional items head. Project on sale of investment in Reliance Airport developers limited. 284.19 crore rupees. Yes. Okay. Ravi. Thank you very much for coming here. But before I conclude I understand you're writing a book on the subject. I'm doing that. Very good. We're looking forward to your book. When can we expect your book to be published? I wanted to do it as soon as possible. But a lot of informations are coming up new. New disclosure. Yeah. We are expecting something. A new disclosure again like this is going to happen in a few days. Next few days. So we have to wait and watch what are the new disclosures. Exactly. Exactly. And whether Rafael will become as big as Bofors or bigger than Bofors time alone can tell because Rahul Gandhi's own father's image was tarnished because of Bofors. Right. Here in this deal I would like to add one thing. Okay. When I said I will not answer political question but still I would like to say this in all the other deals if you look at it whether it's Agusta Westland. Agusta Westland. Yeah. So all these all these big defense contracts. There are a lot of brokers or the agents involved. Intermediaries. Intermediaries. But in this case nobody's there. That's an interesting point. So it was a deal that involved Dessau, the government of France, Mr. Narendra Modi and Mr. Anil Ambani more or less. Yes. That's an interesting part of the story. We'll wait to learn more about what has happened from you and your colleagues. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. For coming here and giving us your time. And I have before we conclude, I broke another story with the news click. I'm aware of that. We'll get an opportunity when you read your book to know more about all these details about what appears to be a very questionable deal involving the purchase of fighter aircraft for the Indian Air Force. Thank you, Ravi. Thank you. And you just heard Ravi Nair who co-authored the latest report on the Rafale scandal, which points to very, very unusual financial transactions between the French aviation company Dessau and what appears to be almost like a dummy or a shell company in the Anil Ambani Group. Thank you for being with us and keep watching news click.