New Delhi, Apr 10 : Deposing before a Delhi court on his defamation complaint against Army Chief Gen V K Singh, former Lt Gen Tejinder Singh today trashed allegations of having offered a Rs.14 crore bribe to him for clearing a deal for 600 “sub-standard” vehicles.

“The allegation was that I had offered bribe on behalf of Tatra and Vectra Ltd, which supplies vehicles to BEML. This allegation is absolutely false, ill-founded and concocted and I deny the same,” he said.

Tejinder Singh, a former Director General of Defence Intelligence Agency, has slapped a defamation case against the Army Chief and four others.

Besides the Army Chief, he has also named Vice Chief of Army Staff S K Singh, Lt Gen B S Thakur (DG MI), Major General S L Narshiman (Additional Director General of Public Information) and Lt Col Hitten Sawhney posted in the media cell, accusing them of misusing their official positions, power and authority to level false charges against him.

Tejinder Singh contended that all the five formed a direct chain of command with the Army Chief being the final arbiter.

Testifying before Metropolitan Magistrate Sudesh Kumar, who had earlier asked him to record pre-summoning evidence to support his complaint, the former Lt Gen said the allegations levelled against him by the Army Headquarters were absolutely false.

He told the court that between March 3 and 5 this year, a number of media reports alluded to the Army Chief having allegedly ordered “unlawful monitoring” of mobiles, particularly in the South Block area here.

In order to divert the public attention from this news, which pointed fingers at senior functionaries in the Army Headquarters, including Gen V K Singh, the media cell of the Army Headquarters issued a press release on March 5, he said.

PTI