The death of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi will not wipe away the Congress-led UPA Government’s sordid role in helping him escape the clutches of the law and eventual punishment in India, writes NK Singh
Ottavio Quattrocchi is dead. But Bofors will continue to trouble public memory for long. Undoubtedly, the action of the Government to help out Quattrocchi in Bofors case was sordid. His sudden death cannot wipe it out. Well-known journalist and writer, Tavleen Singh, in her book, Durbar, stated that Quattrocchis were close personal friends of the Gandhis. Not in itself much, but it assumes significance if viewed from the way the Rajiv Gandhi Government and later all, except the VP Singh and perhaps the NDA-led regimes, incriminated themselves on the question of Quattrocchi.
Even though the controversy broke out on April 16, 1987, with a Swedish radio broadcast alleging that bribes had been paid to secure the contract, the nation and Parliament were repeatedly told that nobody, howsoever high, “will be allowed to go free”. But nothing worthwhile was done till VP Singh Government assumed office. A regular case was registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation as late as on June 22, 1990.
The Criminal Procedure Code was amended with effect from February 19, 1990, enabling the investigating agencies and the Central Bureau of Investigation to obtain authorisation, called letters Rogatory, from the competent court to request foreign countries to collect evidence there. letters Rogatory were promptly sent to Switzerland. A Geneva court froze five accounts, of Svenska Inc, Panama, of lotus, Tulip, and Mont Blanc, and another unnamed account. And a Zurich court froze the account of AE Services ltd.
With the situation getting hot in India, Quattrocchi escaped the country in 1993, whether on tip-off or on his own, one does not know. The CBI took steps to get a non-bailable warrant issued and at its initiative, the Interpol also issued a red-corner alert notice against him. In 1998, in response to a notice received from the Delhi High Court, on Quattrochhi’s petition seeking withdrawal of red-corner notice of Interpol and non-bailable warrant against him, the CBI filed a counter-affidavit, saying, “The then Defence Secretary, SK Bhatnagar, had specifically conveyed in May 1985, to the president of AB Bofors and other bidders for the 155 mm howitzer guns that in no circumstance can an agent be employed... But just six months after Bhatnagar’s instructions, AB Bofors proceeded to flout them. AE Services, a shadowy company with no previous experience of such business, was given a ‘consultancy’ contract by the Swedish armament firm.” The CBI also told the Swiss Court that: “It is clear from the documents received by the agency from Swiss authorities in January 1997, that he (Quattrocchi) is the beneficiary of the money paid into AE Services account, the first installment of which alone was 7.34 million dollars.” Thereafter, the Delhi High Court, in 1998 rejected Quattrocchi’s plea seeking quashing of arrest warrant and Interpol’s red-corner notice. Quattrochhi, however, kept on evading appearance.
In the meantime, in January 1997, the Swiss Justice Ministry handed over to the CBI, in Berne, a sealed box containing secret bank documents and statements of some witnesses. The CBI had already received some documents related to AE Services in 1991. The investigation against some of the accused, thereafter, was completed. The successive Governments took their own time in according sanction for prosecution, which was sought by the CBI in May, 1997. After about nine years of registration of the case and all the travails it went through, part of which is its own making, the CBI filed its first chargesheet on October 22, 1999, against SK Bhatnagar, Italian businessmen Ottavio Quattrocchi, Win Chadha, former Bofors President Martin Ardbo and messers AB Bofors of Sweden. The CBI chargesheet also mentioned the name of late Rajiv Gandhi in column(2) as accused, ‘not sent up for trial’, since he was assassinated in May 1991. It had provoked enormous controversy.
In 2006, a stunned nation heard the then Union Minister of law and Justice, Mr HR Bhardwaj, telling a television channel, that the Government of India had conveyed to the Crown Prosecution in the UK its opinion to defreeze two bank accounts held by Quattrocchi. “We have conveyed to them the recent rulings of Delhi High Court rejecting the case against Hinduja brothers as well as status of investigation”, added Mr Bhardwaj.
It transpired that, in an unprecedented move, the then Additional Solicitor-General of India, B Dutta, had been sent all the way to london to brief the Crown Prosecution Service, that the CBI did not have any evidence to link Quattrocchi’s deposits in a london bank with the Bofors pay-off case. We know about investigating and senior law officers of the Indian Government being deputed abroad for pursuing cases or nabbing culprits, but never for helping the accused get out of legal clutches!
(The writer is a former Joint Director of CBI)