The Centre is all set to reopen the Bofors gun case, if the recent presentations of the Defence Ministry and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) before a sub-committee of Public Accounts Committee are an indication.
The Centre told the sub-committee at a recent meeting that the UPA government had in 2005 denied the CBI permission to approach the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court judgment dismissing the proceedings against the Hinduja brothers, who were among the key accused in the case.
The Defence Ministry also said that one of the accused, Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, withdrew £3 million from his bank account despite a Supreme Court directive to freeze his account.
Panel discussions
Based on these presentations, BJP members in the panel have urged the CBI to reinvestigate the case that has haunted the first family (the Gandhis) of the Congress for over three decades.
The sub-committee, headed by Biju Janata Dal MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, saw detailed discussions on the matter.
Bharatiya Janata party MP Nishikant Dubey compared the Bofors case with the Babri Masjid demolition case and argued that if the role of his party veteran LK Advani in the matter can be reinvestigated based on fresh evidence, the Bofors case should also be reinvestigated, based on the details provided by the Defence Ministry in its presentation.
BJP members on the panel urged CBI Director Alok Verma and Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra to start the probe afresh. “This is a clear case of corruption and systemic failure. It has to be reinvestigated,” a member told BusinessLine.
The Delhi High Court had dismissed the proceedings against the Hinduja brothers and quashed the order of a trial court framing charges against Swedish firm Kartongen Kemi Och Forvaltning (formerly AB Bofors) on May 31, 2005.
BusinessLine has reliably learnt that the Defence Ministry told the sub-committee that though the CBI told the Department of Personnel and Training that it was a fit case for filing a special leave petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court against the High Court judgment, the Law Ministry, then headed by HR Bharadwaj, advised the agency not to make any such move. Later, a private individual, Advocate Ajay Kumar Agarwal, filed an SLP in the matter.
The PAC’s sub-committee on ‘Civil Ministries and Non-compliance of timely submission of Action Taken Notes’ had summoned the Defence Ministry and the CBI to make detailed presentations on the action taken on the audit report on the Bofors case. The panel is considering the delay in submitting action taken notes by various ministries.
Some of the cases the panel is considering are as old as the Bofors case (1986). The Defence Ministry had told the panel earlier that some files were missing on such cases; subsequently, the panel pulled up officials and gave them one month’s time to present the details of such files.
On Quattrocchi, the Ministry said the Supreme Court’s order, issued on January 16, 2006, to freeze £3 million held in two accounts with BSI-AG Bank in London could not be implemented as the CBI failed to provide a letter of request to the British authorities.
Though the CBI e-mailed the British authorities about the Supreme Court’s order against defreezing Quattrocchi’s accounts, Interpol confirmed on January 19, 2006, that the money had been withdrawn from these accounts on January 16, 2006, the day of the Supreme Court judgment.
Interpol also expressed its inability to provide any further information in the absence of a letter of request.