Author: Navin Upadhyay
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: January 19, 2006
Quattrocchi saga ---- With the disclosure
by British Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) that it had received specific request
from the Government of India to defreeze Ottavio Quattrocchi's two London
bank accounts, the latest Bofors controversy is becoming a tale of lies, lies
and more lies.
A week after the story first created a political
turmoil, the contours of the conspiracy are becoming clear and the Government
squarely stands in the dock.
What could be damning for the UPA Government
is the disclosure that CPS could have kept the tap on the two accounts indefinitely
and that it had mounted no pressure to defreeze them.
Experts feel that the suo motu initiative
by the Law Ministry and subsequent attempt at its concealment may qualify
in the category of a criminal act.
"There was a clear intention to defreeze
Quattrocchi's accounts. It looks like some people in the Government connived
in conferring a benefit to Quattrocchi," said former additional solicitor
general KN Bhatt.
Former CBI director Joginder Singh was also
baffled by the Indian authorities' requests to defreeze Quattrocchi's accounts.
"It looks a little strange. The proper course could have been to go to
the court, which had issued the Letters Rogatory (LR) to freeze the accounts,
and take an appropriate order from it. The court's directive should have been
have been conveyed to the CPS," he said.
Mr Singh feels that as the case unfolds, the
UPA Government may find itself in a tight spot. "The Government and CBI
will have to do some hard explaining to the court to prove that everything
was done in a bonafide manner," he said.
The latest disclosure by the CPS has shows
that Mr Q's two London accounts could have remained frozen indefinitely because
there was no legally stipulated period for such action. Under the circumstances,
it is anyone's guess why the Indian authorities were hyper active in trying
to reactivate the accounts.
The travesty of truth started with Law Minister
HR Bhardwaj saying that the Crown Prosecution and the British Government had
over the past two years Sought evidence against Quattrocchi for keeping his
accounts under freeze, and that "We have conveyed to them the recent
rulings of the Delhi High Court rejecting the case against the Hinduja brothers,
as well as the status of investigation."
The CPS e-mail of December 23 clearly shows
that the Indian authorities through the Law Ministry had made a specific request
to defreeze Mr Q's accounts, something which neither the CBI nor Mr Bhardwaj
have admitted so far.
Then came CBI's lie. The agency first claimed
the Law Ministry had sent Additional Solicitor General B Dutta to London to
convey the status of the cases against Quattrocchi. The same agency, then
in a volte face, claimed that the Law Ministry had no role in sending Mr Dutta
to London.
Then came the claim by Prime minister Manmohan
Singh that his Government had no role in defreezing Mr Q's accounts and the
case was handled by the CBI on its own. But the CPS e-mail to CBI and B Dutta
on December 25 put a question mark on the credibility of the Prime Minister's
assertion. The e-mail stated that Mr Dutta conveyed the instruction on behalf
of the Government of India, the Ministry of Law, and the CBI to defreeze Mr
Q's accounts because it was unlikely that his trial will proceed.
This was followed by a series of off-the-record
and on-the-record briefing by the CBI in which the agency claimed it had made
no request to defreeze Mr Q's accounts, and the CPS might have done it on
being told that there was no evidence to link the kickbacks money with the
bank deposits. The CPS revelation shows that the CBI was blatantly lying.
There are enough indications that the CBI,
the Law Minister and the Prime Minister have tried to hide the facts. This
is going to deliver a major blow to the UPA Government's commitment to fight
corruption and provide a clean government. At the same time, the fact the
trial court which had issued the LR was kept in the dark about defreezing
the accounts could also land the Government in major legal problems.
Experts feel that several people in the Government
and CBI could be prosecuted under various provisions of the Prevention of
Corruption Act (1988) and the Indian Penal Code.
The officials and members of the Government
who connived with Quattrocchi could be prosecuted under the following:
Section 13 under Prevention of Corruption
Act, 1988 (13-D) dealing with criminal misconduct by a public servant.
Section 120 A of the Indian Penal Code when
two or more persons agree to do, or cause to be done an illegal act, or an
act which is not illegal by illegal means, such an agreement is designated
a criminal conspiracy.
Section 107 of Indian Penal Code deals with
abetment when a person who by wilful misrepresentation, or by wilful concealment
of a material fact which he is bound to disclose, voluntarily causes or procures,
or attempts to cause or procure, a thing to be done, is said to instigate
the doing of that thing.
