Cyrus strikes while AgustaWestland iron is hot

Mumbai: Cyrus Mistry on Sunday injected a political element into the corporate governance war engulfing the Tata Group by accusing Vijay Singh, a nominee of Tata Trusts on the Tata Sons board, of being a key player in the AgustaWestland helicopter controversy.

Singh, a former defence secretary, had chaired the Tata Sons board meeting on October 24 that removed Mistry as chairman of the Tata Group's holding company.

"As defence secretary, Vijay Singh was a key official involved in the award of the Rs 3,600-crore VVIP helicopter contract to AgustaWestland in 2010. It is a matter of public record that the government had to cancel the contract, dubbed 'Choppergate' by the media, due to charges of corruption and graft," said a statement issued today by Mistry's office.

Singh tonight rejected the charge and described it as "slanderous and malicious", saying the deal was approved by the Union cabinet well after he had retired from government service.

Last week, the CBI had arrested former Indian Air Force chief S.P. Tyagi for alleged involvement in the chopper deal.

Until now, the Narendra Modi government has maintained a neutral stand on the Tata row, refusing to take sides as one of the biggest corporate battles is poised to play out from Tuesday when Tata Consultancy Services shareholders will be asked to vote on the removal of Mistry from the company's board of directors.

Five other group companies have EGMs scheduled over the next fortnight where they will vote on similar resolutions moved by Tata Sons.

It is difficult to foresee whether Mistry will derive any benefit from his latest gambit to link a key person from the Ratan Tata camp to the chopper controversy.

Singh said in an emailed statement: "I was defence secretary from 2007-2009 and the present cases being prosecuted by CBI pertain to 2004-2005. The AugustaWestland acquisition was approved by the cabinet well after my retirement. To connect me with this matter is slanderous and malicious."

The full facts of the VVIP chopper deal are yet to be surveyed. The contract for the AgustaWestland choppers was concluded after a process that went through at least three governments - the NDA government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the Manmohan Singh governments of UPA I and UPA II.

The chopper file was around when Singh was defence secretary. But Singh was not the defence secretary when the contract was signed in 2010 or when the specification on the height requirement was changed in 2003, according to an official timeline issued by the UPA government on February 14, 2013. The tender was issued and the contract signed under the UPA.

The specification change is at the centre of the dispute with investigators saying it was done to favour AugustaWestland. But the UPA statement had said the change widened the competition and allowed three companies to participate.

Today, Mistry's statement said Singh had been "unceremoniously" removed as Madhya Pradesh chief secretary in 2006 by the then chief minister during the clean-up of an inter-corporate deposit scam.

Singh is a retired IAS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre and a non-executive director of Tata Sons. He handled various assignments in Madhya Pradesh and at the Centre during his 37-year career.

Mistry accused Singh of cooking up theories "to defend his role in the conspiracy" hatched by Ratan Tata to sack him as the chairman.