Over a seven-and-half-month investigation, special correspondents of the magazine filmed several corrupt defence officials and politicians of NDA government, including the BJP President Bangaru Laxman, accepting bribes and discussing kickbacks.
[1] Vipin Khanna, Sudhir Choudhrie and Suresh Nanda faced allegations and claims of being the three most powerful arms dealers in India.
Investigative journalists from the magazine would get in touch with junior officers of the Indian defence establishment and move upwards.
200,000 to give documents related to the procurement of hand-held thermal cameras and other equipment that the company might be interested in supplying to the Indian Army.
During the conversation, Brigadier Sehgal said that the company would have to pay to everyone and some percentage would also reach the then Defence Minister George Fernandes.
Deepak Gupta assured that he would help the UK based company bag the project and talked about his influence in the government.
He was quite vocal about his relationship with the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani and said that both of them were tenants at his properties.
[5] On December 23, 2000,[6] journalists posing as representatives of the arms manufacturing company held their first meeting with the then BJP chief Bangaru Laxman.
They then met him several times over the period of one week and promised to compensate him for his recommendation to the Defence Ministry on the supply of hand-held thermal imagers.
It emerged that the defence deals were not driven by considerations of national security, but by the greed of political and bureaucratic people.