Details of the alleged Rs 11-crore bribe paid by the Australian Wheat Board(AWB) for a decade-old import order from India were first uncovered by an Australian investigation into the Iraqi oil-for-food programme in 2006.
On May 22, 2006 , The Indian Express first reported how Terence Cole, the Australian government-appointed Commissioner, had received evidence of illegal payments made by the Australian Wheat Board to Iraq and to corrupt deals in other markets, including India.
Despite the CBI filing a closure report in the case in 2004, the Australians activated the pending Letter Rogatory and conducted searches in March which yielded documents that were received by the agency through diplomatic channels in June.
CBI Director Vijay Shanker said: “This is an instance of exemplary cooperation of the Australian Government. They themselves conducted search operations in the AWB and we promptly received documents about which Commissioner Cole had given the first hint.”
CBI officials said that the hundreds of pages recovered during the searches go beyond what the Australian inquiry uncovered. The documents recovered include internal correspondence on the deal to import two million tonnes of wheat between then STC chairman Dewan and agent Sardana and the opening of the bank account in Cayman Islands where the commissions were paid.
“We will have enough to directly link the then STC chairman and the agent with the commissions but we will have to trace the money trail beyond the Cayman Islands now,” CBI officials said.
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