Tata’s bribery charge sparks ethics debate

Rahul Bajaj, who heads the Bajaj business empire, supported Ratan Tata’s bribery charge against a former minister, and said it was not uncommon for politicians to demand and take bribes from industrialists.

Tata had said on Monday that a former minister, who wanted a bribe of Rs 15 crore, had blocked his group’s attempts to set up an airline in collaboration with Singapore Airlines.

Bajaj, chairman of Bajaj Auto, said big corporate houses would find it easier not to be corrupt than small ones, but they still give money to get their jobs done. He said his group had not paid any bribes, and politicians don’t ask him because they know his family has an impeccable ethics record.

In an editorial, The DNA has demanded action, now that Tata has “mentioned the unmentionable”:

There are three huge scams currently under investigation — the Commonwealth Games, Adarsh Housing and 2G spectrum. All of them involve gross misdemeanours of the highest order, sanctioned by ministers and babus.

Systemic corruption is clearly getting out of hand. The sheer scale and size of the problem is going to make the India story unviable. Only systemic reforms can eliminate this unholy tax.

The BJP, meanwhile, said Tata should identify the minister who sought a bribe. Its spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy said the airline industry had flourished when he was at the helm of the civil aviation ministry.The Outlook reported:

Recalling that Tata had in 1996 applied for starting a domestic airline with Singapore Airlines, Rudy said it was much before the NDA came to power.

“At no point of time the Tata Group submitted application for permission for airline business with Singapore Airlines when either Ananth Kumar, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain or myself held the portfolio of the civil aviation ministry”, he said.

That leaves all fingers pointing at C M Ibrahim, civil aviation minister during H D Deve Gowda’s regime as prime minister. The former minister, then with the JD(S) and now a Congress leader, said he had only asked the Tatas to approach the government alone, and not with a foreign company. He claimed he hadsaved the nation crores of rupees by refusing permission for the Tatas to collaborate with a foreign airline.

On a TV channel, Ibrahim declared he had patriotic intentions in denying permission to a company whose hotel, The Taj, had once followed the policy, “Indians and dogs not allowed.”