New Delhi: Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari will send legal notices to two Swedish media houses, including public broadcaster SVT, for publishing reports alleging that he and his family members were linked to a deal involving luxury bus and truck manufacturer Scania, his office said Thursday.
“It’s a clear case of defamation. We are drafting the legal notice and we will send it to the two media houses tomorrow,” an official in Gakari’s office told ThePrint.
Swedish news agencies had Wednesday reported that the luxury bus-maker allegedly paid bribes to individuals/officials in seven states in India between 2013 and 2016 to get contracts to sell Scania buses.
Media reports also alleged that Scania delivered a luxury bus to a company linked to Gadkari’s son, which was intended for use in Gadkari daughter’s wedding in 2016.
Following the reports, Scania issued a detailed statement Wednesday where it denied sending any bus to Gadkari for his personal use, the official in Gadkari’s office said.
“The Scania spokesperson Hans-Åke Danielsson had in his statement denied engaging in any business deal with any connected with Gadkari’s sons.
“Since the entire episode of the Scania bus was an internal affair of the Swedish company, the statement of the Scania spokesperson has made it clear that Shri Gadkari and his family members have absolutely nothing to do with the purchase or sale of any Scania bus. Nor do they have anything to do with any firm or individual who might be linked with the purchase or sale of the bus,” the official added.
In the Scania statement, Hans-Åke Danielsson said the company did sell the Scania Metrolink bus to one of its Bengaluru-based dealers called Transpro Motors, which in turn sold it to a company named Sudarshan Hospitality, an Indian bus operator based out of Nagpur, according to Gadkari’s office.
“…this particular bus was purchased from Scania India in 2016 by one of the company’s private dealers who delivered it to one of its customers (an Indian bus operator). I have no information about the current status of the bus,” the statement said.
Gadkari’s office had Wednesday evening issued a statement calling the allegations levelled against the minister and his family as “malicious, fabricated and baseless”.
ThePrint emailed a detailed questionnaire Thursday morning to Karin Hallstan, Scania’s head of corporate communications & PR and Hans-Åke Danielsson, who is also the press manager, but there was no response till the time of publishing this report.
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What the Scania case is all about
On Wednesday, it was reported that a 2017 internal investigation conducted by Scania, part of Volkswagen AG’s commercial vehicle arm Traton SE, had come across several instances of misconduct by employees, including senior management in its India operations.
The company’s report, which is not public, alleged that some Scania employees, who have since left, paid bribes to the tune of 65,000 euros. The bribes were paid to local officials in state road transport corporations in seven states in at least 19 cases to win the deal to sell the company’s buses.
The internal report also found that Scania allegedly falsified vehicle documents for 100 trucks to sell them to a public sector coal mining company in India.
In its statement, Scania also said that 55 buses that were used for trial by Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) were returned to it.
“These public transport buses were delivered to NMC and were returned to Scania India after the trial was finished. All of the 55 ethanol buses ordered by NMC have been returned to Scania India,” Gadkari’s office said, quoting Scania’s statement.
The statement issued by Scania Wednesday also said that the company has since stopped operations in India.
(Edited by Manasa Mohan)
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