Recording the statement of Gen. Singh is part of the agency’s probe under the preliminary enquiry (PE). Agency officials will meet the Army Chief to seek clarification on certain other issues related to the Tatra trucks deal in 2010. “We cannot call him for recording the statement,” sources said. Without registering a regular case, the CBI does not have the power to call anybody to CBI headquarters for recording a statement, sources clarified. “If the agency decides to convert the existing PE into a regular case, only then can the CBI send summons to people,” they said. The CBI on April 11 registered a PE on the Army Chief’s complaint alleging that he was offered a bribe. The agency has also prepared a set of questions to be asked of Gen. Singh at the time of recording his statement. The questions include details about his reported communications with the ministry of defence on the Tatra deal in 2010; the role, if any, played by officials of the state-owned BEML and MoD; and also the roles, if any, of other private persons, apart from Ravi Rishi and a retired official, sources added.
CBI officials have also scrutinised photocopies of the communications between the Army and MoD regarding the Tatra trucks deal. “Agency officials want to know whether the Army Chief knew that the Tatra trucks deal agreement signed earlier with the Foreign Trade Corporation of Czechoslovakia, for military vehicles, was fraudulently assigned to Tatra-UK in 1997 by showing it as an original equipment manufacturer and a fully owned subsidiary of the Czech company,” sources said.