A division bench of Justices Y K Sabharwal and K S Gupta, while dismissing a public interest litigation, said ``in our opinion it is not a fit case to entertain the PIL and issue notices to the respondents.''

The court also rejected the request of the petitioner seeking a direction to the government to take up the issue of procuring spare parts for the 155mm Howitzer field guns from Sweden or indigenously manufacturing them.

It said, ``we do not think a direction is required to the government to secure necessary spare parts (for the guns).''

The PIL by advocate B L Wadhera had sought monitoring of the investigation by the court and direction to the Centre to grant sanction to CBI for starting prosecution against those named in the report submitted by the agency to the home ministry on May 12 last year after perusing the voluminous papers received from Switzerland.

The bench, during arguments observed that investigation in the case was being carried out in various countries and the difficulties faced by CBI were obvious.

The petitioner said serious issues were involved in the case and had it been tackled sincerely and promptly, many other scams might not have taken place.

Making a plea for admission of the petition, Wadhera said ``if the court will not intervene, where shall we go. The politicians are not doing anything and the country cannot go on waiting for so long.''

He said since the CBI report had indicated the names of some of the beneficiaries of the Rs 64 crore payoff on the Rs 1,437 crore deal and claimed there was enough evidence against them, immediate legal proceedings should be started.

The petitioner claimed CBI's special investigating team had sought government sanction for prosecution of former external affairs minister Madhavsinh Solanki, former defence secretary S K Bhatnagar, former additional secretaries in Prime Minister's office Gopi Arora and Sarla Grewal, Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, his wife Maria, Bofors agent Win Chadha and his son Harsh Chadha.

Five successive governments had done very little and any further delay would hamper the progress of the investigation, the petition said adding that Quattrocchi, accused of getting three per cent commission, was ``consciously and deliberately'' allowed to flee the country.

The high court had on August 5 dismissed Quattrocchi's plea against a non-bailable arrest warrant by a special court here and red-corner alert by CBI against him. Quattrocchi is presently residing in Malaysia.