Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday said the Defence Ministry would review all cases of blacklisted firms and come out with a new list as per its new policy regarding the same. “That does not mean they will be taken out. Don’t interpret... they will be examined. What is the status, how many years they have been blacklisted for and why they were blacklisted,” Parrikar said.
The ministry will look at around a dozen firms that were blacklisted during the previous Congress regime, PTI reported. The firms include Singapore Technologies, which had moved court against its blacklisting. The new policy was cleared on November 8.
Under the new policy, India will make deals with a blacklisted company in case there is no alternative available. However, such deals are permissible only for national security, operational military readiness and export obligations. And any such business will require a signature from the vice-chief of the service concerned, the chief of the integrated defence staff or the additional secretary (defence production), and permission from the “competent authority”, which is the Defence Minister.
Moreover, the period of ban has been reduced from 10 years to minimum 5 years. The policy, called ‘Guidelines of the Ministry of Defence for Penalties in Business Dealings with Entities’, does not mention the maximum period of ban though.
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