This Article is From Mar 06, 2012

Antony's office bugging scare: Army blames former General

Antony's office bugging scare: Army blames former General

File: Defence Minister AK Antony

New Delhi: Three days after denying that Defence Minister A K Antony's office was bugged, the Army on Monday admitted that "some abnormality" was noticed which it claimed later turned out to be malfunctioning of an instrument. The Army also sought to blame a retired Lieutenant General for giving out "salacious and malafide stories" to the media on it.

"In a routine check, some abnormality was noticed in Mr Antony's office, which was brought to the notice of Defence Secretary. Further checks carried out revealed that voltage drop noticed was due to malfunctioning of the instrument," a press release said today. After reports of alleged bugging in Mr Antony's South Block office, the ministry had denied the reports.

Pointing fingers at a former Defence Intelligence Agency chief, the Army claims that the stories are being put out by him. "The present story has been put out by Lt Gen (retd) Tejinder Singh, who was the ex DGDIA and who has been earlier questioned on the purchase of the 'Of the air Monitoring System', without sanction by the technically empowered committee," the Army press release said, adding,"This officer has also been an allottee in Adarsh Housing Society in Mumbai and has also offered bribe on behalf of Tatra and Vetra Limited, which supplies vehicles to BEML. The Officer along with some disgruntled serving officers of the military intelligence, against whom disciplinary and administrative actions is in the pipeline has worked out this fictitious story."

Lieutenant General Singh has denied any wrong doing. In his defence, he says he retired two years ago and there are no inquiries against him. He admits to having a flat in the controversial Adarsh Society in Mumbai, but says that is under no inquiry. He also said he had made no purchases 'without sanction' as claimed by the Army in their press release.

The report of alleged bugging in the Defence Minister's office has become the second such instance. A few months ago the Finance Minister's office was found to have a sticky substance underneath his desk.
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