6 arms firms stays blacklisted, 14 suspended in defence ministry's graft list

New Delhi: The Defence Ministry on Tuesday issued a comprehensive list of companies, which have either been blacklisted or business with whom has been put on hold as the firms have been accused of wrongdoings.

According to the fresh vigilance circular, a total of six firms remain blacklisted or “debarred”, out of which four are foreign and two are Indian companies. In addition, dealings are “suspended” with another 14 and “restricted” with four.

The first category of blacklisted firms include global arms majors Singapore Technologies Kinetics (STK), Israel Military Industries (IMI), Rheinmetall Air Defence (Zurich), Corporation Defence (Russia), T S Kisan & Co (New Delhi) and R K Machine Tools (Ludhiana). No business dealings are allowed with these six firms till 2022.

Consequent to the registration of a case by CBI to inquire into alleged criminal wrongdoing in the procurement of VVIP choppers, the ministry has put on hold all procurements with AgustaWestland International Ltd, UK, Leonardo SpA (erstwhile Italian conglomerate Finmeccanica), IDS Tunisia, Infotech Design System Mauritius, IDS Infotech Mohali and Aeromatrix Info solution Pvt Ltd, Chandigarh. All these firms are in the “suspended” group.

Six firms connected with the main accused in the naval war-room leak case of 2005, Abhishek Verma, Ravi Shankaran and Kulbhushan Parashar, are also in this category. They are Shanx Oceaneering, Inter Spiro India Pvt Ltd, Expert Systems, Unitech Enterprises, Kelvin Engineering and Atlas group of companies.

The last firm in this category is Offset India Solutions (P) Ltd.

Engine manufacturer Rolls Royce, Tatra truck manufacturer (Czech Republic) and Israeli firms Rafael and Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) are the four companies with whom “restricted procurements” are allowed on the basis of operational urgency.