Did Datta lie to HC on Bofors?

Author: Dhananjay Mahapatra
Publication: The Times of India
Date: January 23, 2006

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) B Datta, who is in the eye of a political storm over defreezing of Ottavio Quattrocchi's bank accounts, had reversed his own stand in favour of the accused in the Bofors case.

Just two months before he told the Delhi high court that the documentary evidence against the accused was not authentic and hence not admissible, laying the basis for Justice R S Sodhi to quash the charges against the Hinduja brothers, Datta had filed a document tak­ing a diametrically opposite stand.

Contrary to his version before the court in May 2005, Datta had in February attested a CBI affidavit about the genuineness of the Swedish documents regarding Bofors kickbacks as well as the admissibility of the very same set of documents.

The change of version is significant not just because it formed the basis for the HC judgment discharging the Hindujas but also because this verdict was referred to by another ASG, KP Pathak, to give a clean chit to Quattrocchi. Pathak's opinion formed the basis for defreezing of Quattrocchi's accounts in the UK.

Documents in the possession of TOI clearly spell out that both ASG Datta and the CBI knew very well that the documents were authenticated by the justice department of Sweden and could be treated as "admissible".

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