Officials who have been previously associated with the Scorpene submarine project say that the leak of key documents “is not too surprising.”
The project worth more than Rs 20,000 crore had been embroiled in controversies, from delay to allegations of kickbacks and now this massive data leak. The officials say that from the very beginning they had been surprised the way numerous sun-contractors and consultants were given the access of sensitive information. Also, they point out that the leak was reported by an Australian newspaper and all the documents that were mentioned were not available with any individual or on a single server in India, so the source could have been only a French one.
Read: Everything you need to know about Scorpene submarine leak
According to the Hindu, Cameron Stewart, journalist with The Australian , who scooped the leak, confirmed the ‘french’ source.
“One of the flaws was that the project was hugely dependent on sub-contractors. It is something that we have been worried about from the very beginning,” says an official involved in the project since the deal was signed in 2005.
“Many sensitive issues, even design documents, were being handled by sub-contractors. [The French company] DCNS had engaged sub-contractors for converting and formatting French design into technically transferable English documents,” he said.
In fact, sources said a few sub-contractors had left the project following differences with DCNS while the Indian contract was under way. One official also recalled that a key official of Thales, one of the French companies involved in the contract, left midway and returned to the project recently. “It could well be any of them,” an official said as reported by The Hindu.
Read: National Security gravely compromised; Congress reacts to Scorpene leak
