New Delhi
14 March 2008
The guilty plea entered on Thursday by Parthasarathy Sudarshan
(47) in a United States court, on the charges of conspiracy to violate the Export
Administration Regulations and the Arms Export Control Act, underlines the limits to the
India-US strategic partnership and cooperation in high technology.
According to information put out by the US Department of Justice, Sudarshan did
business as Cirrus Electronics and held himself out to be Cirrus' CEO, Managing
Director and President and Group Head. Cirrus has offices in South Carolina (US),
Singapore, and Bangalore in India.
The US says that between 2002 and 2006, Sudarshan acquired electrical components
with applications in missile guidance and firing systems in the US for Vikram Sarabhai
Space Centre (VSSC) and Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL). Both VSSC and BDL are on the
US Department of Commerce's Entity List and exports of US-origin commodities to these
entities are restricted and require prior authorisation in the form of a licence from the US
Department of Commerce. The Entity List is a list that specifies licence requirements for
transactions involving certain "listed" entities. It is subject to the Export Administration
Regulations.
The Entity List of the Bureau of Industry and Security of the US Department of Commerce
contains over 15 Indian organisations, including several Defence Research and
Development Organisation (DRDO), Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO) utilities. All the Indian utilities on the Entity List were first
notified on November 19, 1998.
According to the prosecution, Sudarshan fraudulently acquired and shipped controlled
missile technology overseas to the VSSC, which participates in India's space launch
vehicle programme, and the BDL, which participates in India's development and
production of ballistic missiles.
The court documents filed by the US Government also said that Sudarshan acquired
microprocessors for the Tejas, a fighter jet under development in India. The
microprocessors were necessary for the navigation and weapons systems of the Tejas.
The microprocessors are on the US Munitions List, therefore the US Department of State
must license any export of the products.
India, for her part, has maintained that the regulatory framework and licensing
procedures must stay in step with the unfolding strategic partnership between India and
the US and Washington must accordingly reexamine the export curbs on high
technology items. Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon iterated New Delhi's position
most recently at a meeting of the India-US High Technology Group held here.
"We need to ensure that Indian organisations with which the US has agreed to cooperate
must be taken off the entities list. This should be a logical step. We must ensure that the
development of cooperation and the operation of the licensing system are in track with
the opportunities," Mr Menon said after his talks with US Under Secretary of Commerce
Mario Mancuso.
Mr Menon added that New Delhi was looking for a precise and inclusive identification of
items for high technology cooperation. The US official Mancuso did not hold out any
assurance to Mr Menon; he merely said that the Indian entities could take advantage of
the new Validated End-User programme of the US to avoid seeking a licence every time
they wanted to import.
Ironically, Mr Menon's remarks come in sharp contrast to a "fact sheet" brought out
during US President George Bush's visit to India in March 2006. The fact sheet had said,
on an optimistic note, that the "USA now declares removal of all remaining ISRO entities
from this Entity List to further boost" the high-technology cooperation, including in the
civil space sector.
According to Prof Bharat Karnad of the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research,
there will be a certain level of cutting-edge technology, including in the area of nuclear
weapons, that will not be breached by the US. "Nuclear deal or no nuclear deal,
restrictions on India's access to cutting-edge technology will remain," he told this
newspaper.
Prof Karnad went on to assert that the UPA Government has not told Parliament
everything. Instead, he said, the government was behaving as if all restrictions will be
removed. "That is simply not the case," he asserted, before pointing out that the
Americans did not share certain technologies even with their European allies. "The
Americans will not cooperate beyond a point," he added, insisting that India will need to
keep up her efforts to develop certain technologies on her own.
In Sudarshan's case, the court documents filed by the US Government said that
Sudarshan and others at Cirrus provided the US companies with fraudulent certificates
that claimed that the end-users of these electrical components were non-restricted
entities in India, when, in fact, the items were for VSSC. There were no export licences for
any of the shipments to VSSC and BDL. To further conceal from the US Government that
goods were going to entities in India on the Department of Commerce Entity List,
Sudarshan would route the products through its Singapore office and then send the
packages on to India. On two occasions in 2004 and 2006, Cirrus caused the shipment of
a total of 500 microprocessors to the Aeronautical Development Establishment within the
Ministry of Defence, which was responsible for the development of the Tejas. There were
no licenses for these shipments either.
The US court is expected to sentence Sudarshan on June 16.
// Indian organisations on the Entity List* of the United States //
1. Bharat Dynamics Limited
2. Armament Research and Development Establishment (under the Defence Research
and Development Organisation or DRDO)
3. Defence Research and Development Lab (under DRDO)
4. Missile Research and Development Complex (under DRDO)
5. Solid State Physics Laboratory (under DRDO)
6. Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (under the Department of Atomic Energy or DAE)
7. Indira Gandhi Atomic Research Centre (under DAE)
8. Indian Rare Earths (under DAE)
9. Nuclear reactors, including power plants, not under International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) safeguards but excluding Kudankulam 1 and 2 (under DAE)
10. Fuel reprocessing and enrichment facilities (under DAE)
11. Heavy water production facilities (under DAE)
12. Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (under the Indian Space Research Organisation or
ISRO)
13. Solid Propellant Space Booster Plant (under ISRO)
14. Sriharikota Space Centre (under ISRO)
15. Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (under ISRO)
* List not exhaustive
Source: Bureau of Industry and Security, US Department of Commerce
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