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Minister's meeting with Abhishek Verma's wife routine: DefMin

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Press Trust of India New Delhi
Last Updated : Jan 24 2013 | 2:11 AM IST

The information was sent recently by Verma's former business associate C Edmond Allen, who has been sending letters to the Defence Ministry and the CBI.

In his letter, Allen has said that Anca, who is the India head of Swiss rifle company Sig Sauer, had met Pallam Raju, Secretary (Defence Production) Shekhar Aggarwal and Director General (Acquisition) Vivek Rae in their Defence Ministry offices on December 7 last year.

Ministry sources confirmed that these meetings had taken place but said it was a common practice for the Ministers and the senior bureaucrats to meet the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to get a feel of the issues faced by the industry.

They said the appointments for these meetings were sought in the name of Sig Sauer's global head Micheal Lukes and Anca was part of the delegation headed by him.

The company in its request letter for appointment had also expressed its desire to collaborate with India in field of defence.

Sig Sauer had also participated in the tender to supply assault rifles to the India but the company was eliminated in the initial stages itself, the sources said.

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Both Verma and his wife are in judicial custody in connection with a CBI case for taking money from blacklisted German defence firm Rheinmetall Air Defence (RAD) to get them out of the list of barred companies.

In his letter, Allen has also raised questions about the relations of some former Defence Ministry Joint Secretaries with Verma and his associates.

Recently, Verma had moved a Delhi court with a complaint against his former partner Allen accusing him of cheating him of Rs 55 crore and forging documents and emails to defame him.

Verma is also an accused in the Naval War Room leak case in which commercial naval secrets were leaked to foreign companies. Ravi Shankaran, kin of former naval chief Arun Prakash, is also an accused in this case.

  

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First Published: Jul 18 2012 | 9:05 PM IST

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