CBI sleeps, Hindujas get deposit

NEW DELHI: Quattrocchi part two is nudging its way on to the political scene.

With the CBI refusing to raise objections to the Hinduja brothers’ request in the Supreme Court to allow them to take back their security deposit of Rs 15 crore, given as surety in exchange for leave to go abroad, the Bofors issue is back on the scene.

The apex court had on Thursday allowed the Hindujas to withdraw the security deposit after their counsel submitted that the Delhi High court had quashed charges against his clients in the Bofors case on May 31, 2005 and the CBI did not file an appeal.

The issue bears a modicum of similarity to the defreezing of Bofors prime accused Octavio Quattrocchi’s accounts in the UK earlier this year when the CBI’s role in bailing out the Congress-led government on the issue had raised questions about the autonomy of the investigative agency.

In Thursday’s hearing, the CBI did not point out to the SC judge B N Agarwal that the apex court itself had reopened the Bofors case on October 18, ’05 by allowing an appeal against the May 31 HC order which had exonerated the brothers Srichand, Gopichand and Prakashchand.

Advocate Ajay Agarwal had argued that the law ministry did not give the CBI the permission to file an appeal on the May 31 ruling. The CBI’s decision not to appeal against the HC Order had also come in for mention when the Quattrochhi case hit the headlines in January this year.

It was seen as part of the Congress-led government’s move to bury the Bofors ghost even as it was revealed that Additional Solicitor General B Dutta’s had visited London in December 2005 to get the defreezing of Mr Quattrocchi’s accounts underway.

Later when aspersions were cast on the government’s motives in letting Mr Quattrocchi off the hook- he still has an interpol red corner notice pending against him- the CBI had owned responsibility for the move to defreeze the Quattrocchi accounts claiming that it did not enough evidence to link the Bofors money trail to the accounts.

The Opposition BJP, which had put the government in the dock over the Quattrocchi issue, has raised serious questions about what it hinted was government interference in CBI matters. BJP leader Arun Jaitley the CBI has completely compromised itself on the Bofors issue.

“It investigates honestly when non-Congress governments are in power and sabotages the case when Congress is in power. The Bofors case is a text book example of the CBI not being an autonomous agency but being entirely driven by the party’s concerns,’ he told ET.

The HC had cleared the Hinduja brothers of corruption charges in February 2005 and later of conspiracy and cheating charges in May. The FIR against them, filed in January 1990, had alleged that Rs 65 crore was paid as commission to agents in 1987 by AB Bofors for the supply of Bofors guns to India.

Mr Dutta’s visit to the Crown Persecution Service to tell them that India did not have any objection to Mr Quattrocchi’s accounts being defrozen was based partly on an assessment by the another ASG Kalyan Pathak that there was no case of appeal against the Hinduja brothers.