The last of the Bofors accused — former External Affairs Minister Madhavsinh Solanki — will stand trial in the infamous gun deal almost 23 years after he was charged of fabricating evidence that led to suspension of Bofors cash trail probe by the Swiss authorities. A division bench of Supreme Court has rejected the nonagenarian’s review petition against a December 12, 2014 order whereby the court dismissed his plea to quash the CBI proceedings against him due to inordinate delay and his old age.
The same bench of Justices — FM Ibrahim Kalifulla and Abhay Manohar Sapre — heard the review plea filed by Solanki’s lawyer Jayant Mohan in chambers and dismissed it. “We have perused the review petition and the connected papers carefully and are convinced that the order, of which review has been sought, does not suffer from any error apparent warranting its reconsideration.
The review petition is, accordingly, dismissed.” Although the dismissal of review petition leaves an aggrieved litigant with the only choice of filing a curative appeal, Solanki’s lawyer Mohan said, “At present there are no instructions to file a curative petition. Solanki is 91-year-old and will seek discharge from personal appearance before the trial court.”
Solanki was held guilty by a trial court on July 7, 2008 of intentionally giving false evidence in a judicial proceeding punishable under IPC Section 193 with three years imprisonment. It was alleged by the CBI that as the then Foreign Minister, Solanki met Swiss Foreign Minister Rene Felber at the World Economic Forum held at Davos in February 1992 and handed him a note with a specific instruction to suspend Bofors investigation carried out in Switzerland to track the Rs 64 crore trail paid as kickbacks to middlemen, including Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, known to be close to then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The note said that the letters rogatory issued by Indian courts was under challenge before the Delhi High Court. “Until a final decision is issued by Indian courts on that issue, no further steps should be taken in Switzerland in this matter,” the unsigned note said. This instruction fell foul of the trial proceeding in which the letters rogatory were issued. Also, the Supreme Court on August 27, 1991 had held that proceedings challenging the lRs will have no bearing on the pending Bofors investigation in Swiss courts.
Solanki in his special leave petition filed last year got senior lawyer Kapil Sibal to argue that the trial stood vitiated on account of delay by the CBI to file the chargesheet in 2003 for an offence committed in 1992. Sibal cited that his client was of advanced age and was being punished for an offence which at best was punishable only with a maximum sentence of three years.
As a precursor, even the Delhi High Court had rejected Solanki’s arguments finding the charges grave. Solanki had maintained throughout that the note he gave was an alleged opinion of a lawyer that was unsigned and hence lacked evidentiary value. It is true that the Bofors trial failed to secure even a single conviction but the political injury it inflicted to both the Congress Party and its former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, in particular, was immense.