The political embarrassment over the Bofors gun scandal retuned to haunt the Congress Party on Friday after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) woke up from its 12-year slumber and filed an appeal in the Supreme Court to revive the case after the Delhi High Court ended all prosecution against the surviving accused.
As the case involved former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, during whose tenure an order for purchase of 400 Bofors 155 m guns was signed with a Swedish gun manufacturer AB Bofors, the matter remained n spotlight. The sudden death of the former PM followed by the protracted trial finally led to a decision by Delhi High Court on December 31, 2005 quashing all proceedings against the three Hinduja brothers named as facilitating the deal with middlemen who received kickbacks. The HC also discharged the AB Bofors company (presently known as M/s Kartongen Kemi Och Forvalting) from all criminal charges, regardless of the fact that the case against the company was framed pursuant to a Delhi High Court judgment passed on February 4, 2004.
Although a lawyer Ajay Kumar Agarwal in his private capacity had approached the Supreme Court challenging the HC order, the accused had questioned his interest in the case. However, the CBI maintained silence till recently when it told a Parliamentary Committee that it had sufficient evidence to appeal against the HC order. Initially, the office of Attorney General did not find sufficient grounds to lodge a belated appeal before the Supreme Court. But in the light of the evidence gathered by CBI as part of its investigation, he orally is understood to have given instructions to CBI to file its appeal.
According to CBI's appeal, the HC was wrong to go into an in-depth scrutiny of evidence and documents collected by the investigating agency at the stage of framing of charges. This, according to the agency, ought to have been considered at the stage of trial.
Seeking to set aside the HC order and get permission to begin the trial based on available evidence, the CBI produced a wealth of documents to suggest that following a news report in Swedish Radio on kickbacks paid to agents/middlemen in the Bofors gun deal, the Swedish government's decision to begin a probe into this issue. However, the then Indian Prime Minister misled his Swedish counterpart by assuring him that no middleman was involved and scuttled the enquiry.
But when the Swedish PM confronted his Indian counterpart with the later developments indicating that payments were paid, the then Indian PM relented and acknowledged that the decision to hold an enquiry was of "great importance". As regards the Hinduja brothers who are the lone accused alive to face trial, the CBI claimed there is ample material to show they benefitted from the Bofors deal.