Author: Navin Upadhyay
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: January 18, 2006
Path taken could implicate many ---- The plot
to facilitate Ottavio Quattrocchi defreeze his two London bank accounts holding
the alleged Bofors kickbacks was hatched several months back. As the sequence
of events show, both the CBI and the Law Ministry played a key role in rewarding
fugitive Italian businessman with more than four million dollars of the Indian
tax-payers' money.
Legal experts feel that while the CBI may
own up the sins of its master under pressure, the circumstances and facts
of the case are strong enough for criminal prosecution of the people heading
top posts in the UPA Government.
As the documents and facts come before the
Supreme Court, they feel that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may find it difficult
to defend his Government. Law Minister HR Bhardwaj may also face hurdles trying
to save his chair even if he were to feign ignorance about the conspiratorial
developments right under his nose as does the Prime Minister in most cases.
To begin with, Mr Q's two London bank accounts
were frozen on the basis of a Letter Rogatory (LR) issued by the trial court
in India. When the CBI first requested British authorities and Crown Prosecution
Service (CPS) to freeze Mr Q's accounts in 2003 following an Interpol tip
off, the CPS made it clear that it could be done on the basis of legal directives.
The CPS did agree to keep his accounts under temporary freeze, allowing time
to the CBI to come up with a LR.
The trial court, prima facie convinced that
the two accounts held the tainted money, issued the LR, which the CBI submitted
to the British prosecution, leading to a cap on Mr Q's accounts.
Sources said even if the CBI wanted to tell
the CPS that it did not possess evidences to link the deposits in the two
bank accounts of Quattrocchi with the Bofors kickback money, they should have
gone through the court that had issued the LR.
Former CBI director Joginder Singh also felt
that the agency should have gone through the court. "Since the LR was
issued by the court, I feel that the CBI should have taken the court's consent
before giving any view on defreezing Quattrocchi's accounts. However, I don't
know whether the procedure was followed or not," he told The Pioneer.
The Supreme Court observed the same on Tuesday
while directing the Government to take steps to maintain status quo on Quattrocchi's
accounts. "If they (Centre and CBI) are of the view that the case be
dropped against him (Quattrocchi), obviously they should have gone to the
criminal court (where the trial is pending)," the Court said.
However, such a move would have inevitably
invited widespread publicity and brought tremendous political pressure on
the Government. Hence the surreptitious act to bypass the court.
The million dollar question is: was the CBI
acting on its own or under pressure from the Law Ministry.
There are enough records to show that the
Law Ministry under Mr Bhardwaj had a special interest in stonewalling any
prosecution in the Bofors case. Law officers were responsible for CBI leaving
uncontested the acquittal of Hinduja brothers by the Delhi High Court. The
Law Ministry had refused to grant CBI permission to file a special leave petition
against the Delhi High Court's order after detractor prosecution SK Sharma,
a Law Ministry official wrote that "it will be travesty of justice"
if the judgement was challenged.
Incidentally, the same ruling of the Delhi
High Court, which the Law Ministry did not allow to be challenged in the Supreme
Court, was used by Mr Q to get his accounts defreezed. "This is a clear
cut case of conspiracy," said former law minister Ravishanker Prasad.
"The pattern is very clear," he added.
But what takes the cake is the way Mr Bhardwaj
himself, sounding more like an advocate for Mr Q, than the Law Minister of
India, gave a clean chit to the fugitive Italian after CNN-IBN first broke
the story of the move to defreeze the two accounts.
"It was a temporary freeze, not a permanent
freeze. Further, it was wrong to withhold someone's money in the absence of
any evidence against him," Mr Bhardwaj had said. As, the nation subsequently
learnt, Mr Dutta had conveyed the same views to the CPS.
However, Mr Bhardwaj should have known that
CBI had filed a massive chargesheet against Mr Q. The court could not frames
charges against him because he was an absconder. It was for the court to decide
whether there was any link between the two bank deposits of Mr Q and the Bofors
kickback, not for Mr Bhardwaj and his law officers.
In a damage control mode, CBI on Tuesday night
indicated it will question Quattrocchi in Italy and said it would begin a
fresh probe into the trail of Rs 21 crore that was parked in two bank accounts
in London.
