The Bofors scandal

                     The Bofors scandal -

                          Part-1

 

The Bofors scandal was a major corruption scandal in India in the 1980s; the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and several others were accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB for winning a bid to supply India's 155 mm field howitzer. The scale of the corruption was far worse than any that India had seen before, and directly led to the defeat of Gandhi's ruling Indian National Congress party in the November 1989 general elections.

The scandal was worth Rs 150 billion (Rs. 15000 Crores).

The case came to light during Vishwanath Pratap Singh's tenure as defence minister, and was revealed through investigative journalism by Chitra Subramaniam and N. Ram of the newspapers the Indian Express and The Hindu.

The name of the middleman associated with the scandal was Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman who represented the petrochemicals firm Snamprogetti. Quattrocchi was close to the family of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and emerged as a powerful broker in the '80s between big business and the Indian government.

Even while the case was being investigated, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991 for an unrelated cause.

In 1997, the Swiss banks released some 500 documents after years of legal wrangling and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a case against Quattrocchi, Win Chadha, also naming Rajiv Gandhi, the defence secretary S. K. Bhatnagar and a number of others. Several attempts to extradite Quattrocchi failed.

Meanwhile February 5, 2004 the Delhi High Court quashed the charges of bribery against Rajiv Gandhi and others, but the case is still being tried on charges of cheating, causing wrongful loss to the Government, etc. Win Chadha also died.

On May 31, 2005, the High court of Delhi dismissed the Bofors case allegations against the British business brothers, Shrichand, Gopichand and Prakash Hinduja.


                                         Part-2


In December 2005, the Mr B. Datta, the additional solicitor general of India, acting on behalf of the Indian Government and the CBI, requested the British Government that two British bank accounts of Ottavio Quattrocchi be de-frozen on the grounds of insufficient evidence to link these accounts to the Bofors payoff. The two accounts, containing € 3 million and $1 million, had been frozen in 2003 by a high court order by request of the Indian government (when the (now) opposition party BJP was in power). On January 16, the Indian Supreme Court directed the Indian government to ensure that Ottavio Quattrocchi did not withdraw money from the two bank accounts in London. The CBI (Central Bureau Of Investigation), the Indian Federal law enforcement agency, on January 23, 2006 admitted that roughly Rs 21 crore, about USD $4.6 million, in the two accounts have already been withdrawn. The British Government released the funds based on a request by the Indian Government.

However, on January 16, 2006, CBI claimed in an affidavit filed before the Supreme court that they were still pursuing extradition orders for Ottavio Quattrocchi. The Interpol, at the request of the CBI, has a long standing red corner notice to arrest Quattrocchi.

Quattrocchi was detained in Argentina on 6 February 2007, but the news of his detention was released by the CBI only on 23 February. Quattrocchi has been released by Argentinian police. However, his passport has been impounded and he is not allowed to leave the country.

There is no extradition treaty between India and Argentina. Government of India lost this extradition case and decided not to appeal against the decision in the Argentinian Surpreme Court.

The Interpol has removed the red corner notice issued against Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, who is being sought in India for criminal charges for acting as a conduit for bribes in the Bofors scandal.

                                                        Part-3


The Italian businessman no longer figures in the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) list of wanted persons and the 12-year Interpol red corner notice against the lone surviving suspect in the Bofors payoff case has been withdrawn from the agency’s website after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)’s appeal.

The CBI is expected to formally inform the court of the same on April 30.

The decision is apparently based on the legal opinion sent by Attorney General Milon Banerjee to the government in which he describes the notice as "a continuing embarrassment."

Banerjee writes: "The CBI is under an obligation to have the matters set right at the Interpol level as there is no basis on which the RCN can continue...I am of the firm opinion that immediate action should be taken to withdraw the Red Corner Notice".

Quattrochi's counsel had already sought the removal of the notice in October 2008.

Quattrocchi's role in Bofors scam, and his proximity to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi through his wife Sonia Gandhi, is thought to have contributed to the defeat of the Congress Party in the 1989 elections.

Ten years later (1999), the CBI named Quattrocchi in a chargesheet as the conduit for the Bofors bribe. The case against him was strengthened in June 2003, when Interpol revealed two bank accounts, 5A5151516M and 5A5151516L, held by Quattrocchi and his wife Maria with the BSI AG bank, London, containing Euros 3 million and $1 million, a "curiously large savings for a salaried executive".

In January 2006, these frozen bank accounts were unexpectedly released by country's law ministry, apparently without the consent of the CBI which had asked for them to be frozen.
now this issue has become controversial again.