The Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee has brought to light a scam involving supply of defective sleeping bags to troops positioned at Siachen, the world's highest battlefield.

The Ministry of Defence received 8,588 substandard sleeping bags from Monclear, a French firm, between September 1992 and June 1993 at a cost of 11.86 million Francs, it said in its 46th report tabled in both Houses of Parliament.

The troops were unable to use the bags, the report said.

The committee expressed shock that even though the firm had gone bankrupt, the ministry went ahead to negotiate another deal with it.

The report said, "The questionable role of the Ministry of Defence, particularly the officers responsible for execution of the contract, be entrusted to an independent agency for thorough investigation.

"The manner in which the contract was executed by the ministry gave an unmistakable impression that the intention was always to accommodate the foreign supplier under any circumstances regardless of the quality of the sleeping bags."

The committee said it was appalling that the ministry had sought to go ahead with the purchases even after the original Swiss supplier, M/S Richner, had lodged a statutory complaint of the sleeping bags being substandard and the French firm being bankrupt.

The PAC pulled up the Directorate General of Quality Assurance for not inspecting the supplies and called for a review of it functioning.

It also rapped the State Bank of India for releasing payments to the French firm when its role was under scrutiny by the government.

The PAC expressed shock that Master General of Ordnance did not take to its logical end the action taken against officials found responsible for the lapses.

"The committee is quite alarmed by the atmosphere of non-accountability that seems to be prevailing in the Ministry of Defence considering the magnitude of defence purchases," the report said.